The Rock Gets Smart with Steve Carell
Filed under: Comedy, Casting, Warner Brothers, Remakes and Sequels
Right around the time The 40-Year-Old Virgin hit the scene and had everyone (including producers and casting directors) rolling in the aisles, Mr. Steve Carell found himself attached to a whole bunch of comedy projects, one of which was a big-screen adaptation of Get Smart. The mid-'60s spy comedy was created by professional laugh-makers Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, and it helped to turn the bumbling Don Adams into a comedy star ... for a few years, anyway.So a while back we heard that Carell was tenuously attached to this Get Smart movie, and now we know for sure that the thing's moving forward. Anne Hathaway signed on a little while ago, and today comes word that not only will the regally nasty Terence Stamp be playing the Get Smart villain, but also that Dwayne "The Rock " Johnson will be playing a good guy -- which means there might actually be some high-end action scenes in this comedy flick! Cool.
Variety reports on the Rock/Stamp casting, plus they also inform us that director Peter Segal is gearing up to begin production next month. For those with short memory spans, I'll remind you that Mr. Segal also directed Tommy Boy, The Klumps and three pretty lame Adam Sandler comedies. In further non-promising news, the Get Smart screenplay came from the sitcom writing team that made its cinematic debut last year ... with Failure to Launch. Oh well, it takes more than a few spotty filmmakers to quash the comedic brilliance that is Steve Carell, plus with Hathaway, Stamp and Rock-o along for the ride, this flick should still be a pretty fun ride.
[Mega-nerd trivia: This is not the first time Agent Maxwell Smart has seen the inside of a movie theater. Get Smart was retrofitted into a big-screen comedy flick in 1980. It was called The Nude Bomb, and the movie pretty much lived up to its title ... minus the Nude. And the less said about that 1989 TV movie, the better.)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-17-2007 @ 9:12AM
Tobey Cook said...
Hmm. I still don't think Carell is the right choice as Maxwell Smart, but having Terence Stamp as the villain is an interesting choice. I'm taking a wait and see approach on this though, because most TV to big screen translations have been pretty bad (Dukes of Hazzard, anyone?).
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1-17-2007 @ 10:29AM
Geoff said...
I think the Rock will most likly play the cheif. That seems to fit perfectly for him.
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1-17-2007 @ 11:51AM
Keith said...
The Chief??? The only character from the original show that The Rock is perfect for is Hymie, Control's robot agent and friend to Max.
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