The whole idea of secret children who come out of the woodwork is challenging as it is. Should the secret be revealed, or should it stay hidden? How do you make up for lost years? How do you integrate them into the family? Now, imagine that you're part of the law, and you find out that your secret kid is in jail. That's the basic idea behind a new indie comedy called City Island, and The Hollywood Reporter has posted that Julianna Margulies, Emily Mortimer, and Alan Arkin have joined the cast.

Andy Garcia had previously signed on to play Vince Rizzo, "a Bronx prison official who realizes that an inmate (Steven Strait) is his secret love child. His efforts to become his guardian lead to comic complications." Marguiles is taking on the role of Garcia's wife, and it seems that the man is also looking to become an actor because Arkin will play a teacher in the acting class, and Mortimer will be a fellow student he becomes friends with. Garcia's real-life daughter Dominik Garcia-Lorido will play his daughter, and Ezra Miller has also nabbed an undisclosed part.

I really don't know how all of this acting works into prison officials and long-lost bad boy sons, but we should see soon enough. The film went into production this week in the Bronx.

Bringing TV properties to the big screen is a dicey proposition; for every success, there's a fistful of failures that didn't make the cut. (Hands up if you remember I Spy. ...) But gathered in Hollywood for a press conference, the stars and creative staff of Get Smart were relaxed and calm, fielding questions about everything from the tricky business of mocking intelligence in a post-9/11 world, what it takes to play a bad guy, and what it's like to make out with Steve Carell.

The cast was asked if they actually went back to the '60s TV show to get a sense of playing their parts; each of them had a different answer. Steve Carell explained "I didn't want to do an impersonation of Don Adams; I figured there was no way to improve upon what he had done, and I thought the more I watched of him, the more inclined I would be to do an impersonation, because he was so good, so definitive in the role; so no, I sort of backed off."

During the opening of Get Smart, the new big-screen re-visitation of the '60s spy spoof TV show created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, we're shown a montage detailing the mighty workings of the modern intelligence apparatus; covert microphones, satellite communications intercepts, frantic translation, secretive meetings. As top analyst Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) walks the streets of Washington to the hidden headquarters of the secret agency where he works, listening to intercepted conversations to better understand the plans and thoughts of America's enemies, his iPod switches over ... to Abba's "Take a Chance on Me." Spies, it seems, are people too.

And pause here to think about the challenges facing any director who wants to make a spy comedy in our modern times. If you depict spies as too competent, the audience unconsciously fears for their civil liberties; depict spies as too incompetent, the audience unconsciously fears for their lives. Make the film's threat to the free world too credible, and the film's more scary than silly; make the threat to the free world too fantastic and foolish (as in the earlier Get Smart big-screen project, 1980's The Nude Bomb) and the film's more goofy than gripping. The makers of the new Get Smart seem to have thought about this, and have transformed the character somewhat from Don Adams's nasal know-nothing in the '60s TV show; as played by Carell, Smart is a bright, dedicated, insightful analyst for the secret agency CONTROL who dreams of being a field agent. And Max learns he's passed the field agent's exam with flying colors; still, his boss The Chief (Alan Arkin) rejects Max's request for transfer to field work because he needs Max behind a desk.

In the big-screen adaptation of the '60s TV show Get Smart, Alan Arkin takes on the role of The Chief, the spymaster originally portrayed by Edward Platt. Bold, resolute, and perpetually frustrated by the efforts and mistakes of the overly-enthusiastic Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell), The Chief is an ideal part for someone with Arkin's slow-burn comedy timing, and a chance for the Oscar-winning actor to stand out in one of the biggest-budget films of Arkin's career. Cinematical spoke with Arkin in Hollywood about how he came on board the film, his long professional history of mocking the American intelligence establishment, doing his own stunts and if he'd be back for a Get Smart sequel.

Cinematical: I was reading in the press notes, which I'm never inclined to trust ...

Alan Arkin: I deny it; I never said anything like that in my life. ...

Cinematical: I read how Mr. Carell was how you got involved in the film ...

AA: I'm hearing that today for the first time; I've heard it from three people, so maybe it's true ...

"Agent 23 is the greatest agent on the planet." -- Dwayne "The Rock' Johnson

Moviefone has debuted an exclusive behind-the-scenes clip from this summer's Get Smart, starring Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway (is it me, or does she look GOOD in this flick?), Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Alan Arkin. Above, watch as Dwayne (Johnson? Rock?) takes us through the trials and tribulations of his character, Agent 23. As Carrell points out in the video above, "Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is a formidable force. It's very emasculating to even be in a room with him because he sweats testosterone, whereas I sweat estrogen." Nice.

Watch the video above (or over on Moviefone), then head out to the theater to see Get Smart when it arrives on June 20 (trailers available here, here and here).

Why We Can't Wait to See It: Because in pretty much every film he's made -- big, boring, insipid not-quite-sequels excepted -- Steve Carell brings the funny. The trailers look surprisingly solid, and the cast -- including Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin and Terence Stamp -- is top-notch.

Why It Might Do Well: Because people just plain like Carell -- and the film's plot pitch where a secret agency's having their top people exposed forces them to shove unknown agents out into the field is, in fact, a solid story-driven reason for an incompetent like Max to placed in harm's way. ...

Why It Might Not Do Well: We may be a little tired of Baby Boomer-era nostalgia TV getting splashed up on the big screen; anyone else remember how well I Spy turned out?

Fun Fact: Get Smart was created by Buck Henry and Mel Brooks -- yes, the men behind The Graduate and Young Frankenstein.

Trivia:


Answer Key

Cinematical has just received these exclusive wallpapers for Get Smart, starring Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Alan Arkin. Get Smart, of course, is based on the popular '60s television series created by Mel Brooks -- and it features Carell and Hathaway as Agent 86 and Agent 99, respectively; both of whom are placed in charge of stopping those evil geniuses at KAOS from succeeding in their plan to dominate every man, woman and child on Earth. The wallpapers (there are five in total) can be found after the jump, and the dimensions below each denote the size of the wallpaper. To save as your computer's background, you want to click the appropriate size, right-click on the image that appears and click "Set as background." When it's all said and done, you'll be able to stare at Hathaway's beautiful face for as long as you please. And Carell, well, he's pretty hot too (but I didn't just say that). Get Smart arrives in theaters on June 20. Enjoy!

Head after the jump for all five exclusive Get Smart wallpapers, and check out images from the film in our gallery below.

You might remember that back in October, a new project started to gear up called The Private Lives of Pippa Lee. Based on Arthur Miller offspring Rebecca Miller's upcoming novel (that she adapted and will direct), the pic will focus on "a dutiful wife whose husband falls for a younger woman, freeing her to explore her buried sensuality and leading to a very quiet nervous breakdown."

I was ouching just at the thought of sensual exploration leading to a nervous breakdown, but now I have two reasons: along with the added cast just posted by The Hollywood Reporter, it's been confirmed that Robin Wright Penn is the wife, and Winona Ryder is the younger woman. For frak's sake, there's only a handful of years between the two women. Are they planning to age Wright Penn, or do they just think she looks that much older?

Anyway, adding to the tasty cast is Keanu Reeves, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Alan Arkin, and Monica Bellucci. Arkin will, of course, play the husband who leaves Wright Penn in the dust, and Bellucci will play his first wife -- so he's a dude who loves those May-December romances. Gyllenhaal will get the honor of appearing in flashbacks as Pippa Lee's "diet pill-addicted mother." Julianne Moore is some "lesbian novelist." And finally, Reeves gets to explore Wright Penn's sexuality. Now it all makes sense -- fool around with Keanu and you'll go crazy!

Once everyone finishes up their current gigs, production will kick into gear this April in Connecticut.

With his best supporting actor win at the Academy Awards this past weekend, Alan Arkin has now found himself in hot demand -- but of course, he doesn't care. He's Alan. He seems like the kind of guy who's number one love in life is a hot pastrami on rye and a copy of the Sunday newspaper in his lap. And yet, his role as a perverted, drug-addicted grandpa in Little Miss Sunshine has catapulted this legendary actor back into the mainstream ... and back into a role opposite Steve Carell.

Warner Bros. has tapped Arkin to star in their big-screen version of Get Smart, alongside Carell (Maxwell Smart), Anne Hathaway (Agent 99), Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (Agent 23) and Terrence Stamp (who, I assume, will play the villain). Arkin will play the chief of CONTROL, a role Edward Platt once owned on the beloved TV series. For those not aware, CONTROL is an organization formed to fight the evil forces of KAOS. It's taken forever for this film to get off the ground, but it looks like we'll finally get a chance to check it during the already crowded summer of 2008; Get Smart is set to arrive in theaters on June 20.

What do you do when a role gets you your first Oscar nod in 38 years? If you're the scene-stealing Alan Arkin, you follow it up with another similarly-titled movie. After the success of Little Miss Sunshine, he has just signed on to co-star in another sun-filled indie film -- the upcoming Sunshine Cleaning. In October, Kevin Kelly brought us word of Amy Adams' involvement in the film, which tells the story of Rose Lorkowski, a woman sick of cleaning other people's homes for little cash. Wanting to send her son, Oscar, to a private school and make more money, she starts a biohazard/crime scene clean-up business with her unreliable sister, Norah.

Since that post, Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) has officially signed on to co-star, along with Clifton Collins Jr. (the crazy drug dealer from Rules of Attraction). There is no word yet on who Arkin will play in the Christine Jeffs feature, but hopefully it won't be a repetitive role where Grandpa Arkin sits down with Oscar and counsels his grandson about the joys of having lots of young sex -- the kid is supposed to be an 8-year-old. Maybe Arkin will be a Gil Grissom-type crime scene investigator that the cleaning sisters always run into. We shouldn't have too long to find out. The flick will start shooting in Albuquerque next week.