“Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” Meet “Mr. & Mrs. Jones”

Eh, they’re old news. 

Did you ever see that old movie, “Mr. & Mrs. Smith?” No, not the really old one with Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery–the other old one, you know, with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, where they play a married couple who are secretly professional assassins who are then hired to kill each other? You know, the movie where Brad and Angelina fell in love and he got divorced from Jennifer Aniston so he could be with Angelina and have kids with her and adopt kids too, an action that singlehandedly saved Us Weekly and InTouch Magazine. Wow, that was long ago…like 2005.

Yup, only five years ago, but it’s all old hat now. New York magazine is reporting that Fox is planning a “reboot” of the film (since it’s not a franchise or series, is it really a reboot? I loathe the word reboot), a prequel of sorts to be called “Mr. & Mrs. Jones.” Here’s what they’re saying:

Jones will serve as an origin story about a similar but differently named couple, showing how a pair of twentysomething spies are set up as a fake married couple when they graduate agency training. Oscar-winning writer/producer Akiva Goldsman (Hancock, I Am Legend) is attached to produce.

So what’s the reasoning behind this? Well, here you have a (sort of) original story, but you can attach it to a recognized name, which always makes studios feel a little better about greenlighting a project. Also, you can recast it with younger, cheaper actors! Imagine the difference in salary between Angelina Jolie and say, Blake Lively or any other pretty girl from a CW series. It’s a lot. A real sequel to “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” with Brangelina would be a high-budget film; without them, suddenly it’s relatively low-budget and easy. Welcome to the new Hollywood, where being high profile and successful doesn’t help get a movie made anymore…