The 2005 action comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith was a bona fide hit for New Regency and 20th Century Fox, and while it’s not a big surprise to learn that the husband-and-wife assassin story is headed to television, the form it’s going to take is a bit … unexpected.
Deadline reports that the film starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as a married couple moonlighting as professional killers, is being developed as a reality-television competition series. The show is expected to feature married couples as contestants in a “high-octane, high-stakes” game, although no additional details were provided.
It’s uncertain whether the show will pit partners against each other (which would be more in line with the movie’s premise) or have them competing against other couples.
The series is being co-produced by 3 Ball Entertainment, an production company specializing in unscripted content that was acquired by Warner Bros in 2014. The company has produced several popular series including ABC’s Extreme Weight Loss, Spike’s Bar Rescue, Animal Planet’s My Cat from Hell, Spike’s Catch a Contractor and Hungry Investors, and TBS’ Funniest Wins.
Directed by Doug Liman, Mr. & Mrs. Smith hit theaters in June 2005 and earned more than $478 million worldwide. The film was written by X-Men franchise screenwriter Simon Kinberg, and made Pitt and Jolie the new Hollywood power couple when it premiered ten years ago. The film still ranks as Jolie’s second-highest grossing live-action film (after Maleficent), and the second-highest grossing film for Pitt (after World War Z).
A TV series based on the film was previously developed for ABC with The Ring actor Martin Henderson and The Fast and the Furious franchise actress Jordana Brewster playing the characters originally portrayed by Pitt and Jolie, but the project was never picked up. The series was intended to be a sequel to the film, unfolding after the events of the big-screen story.
