Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a 2005 American action comedy film[1] directed by Doug Liman and written by Simon Kinberg. The film stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as a bored upper middle class married couple surprised to learn that they are assassins belonging to competing agencies, and that they have been assigned to kill each other. Besides being a box office hit, Mr. & Mrs. Smith also established Pitt and Jolie's personal relationship.[2][3]
Mr. & Mrs. Smith | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Doug Liman |
Written by | Simon Kinberg |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Bojan Bazelli |
Edited by | Michael Tronick |
Music by | John Powell |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release dates |
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Running time | 120 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $110 million[1] |
Box office | $487.3 million[1] |
The film was released in the United States on June 10, 2005. It received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $487 million worldwide.
Construction executive John and tech support consultant Jane are answering questions during marriage counselling. The couple has been married for "five or six" years, but their marriage is suffering to the point that they cannot remember the last time they had sex. They tell the story of their first meeting in Bogotá, Colombia, where they claimed to be together in order to avoid being questioned by Colombian authorities. They fell in love and got married.
In reality, John and Jane are both skilled field operatives working for different contract killing firms, both among the best in their field, each concealing their true profession from the other. They live in a large Colonial Revival house in the suburbs, and keep up appearances by reluctantly socializing with their "conventionally" wealthy neighbors. Under these cover stories, John and Jane balance their apparently mundane marriage—which both of them find after a few years to be growing dull and suffocating—with their secretive work. When both are assigned to kill DIA prisoner Benjamin "the Tank" Danz during a transfer, they encounter each other on the job and the hit ends up botched; Danz survives, while John and Jane are assigned to kill each other instead.
After making escalating attempts on each other's lives, the Smiths' conflict culminates in a massive shootout that nearly demolishes their home. In a protracted, evenly matched fight, they wind up with guns in each other's faces. John declines to shoot, telling Jane that he loves her, and lays his gun down. Jane finds she cannot shoot John either, and they make passionate love that night with their relationship now reignited. The renewed Smith partnership is quickly threatened by their employers, who join forces to eliminate the couple. John's best friend and co-worker, Eddie, turns down a bounty of $400,000, but John and Jane find themselves under fire from an army of assassins. Fending off an attack which blows up their pockmarked house, the Smiths steal their neighbor's minivan and successfully destroy their attackers' three pursuing armored sedans, all while bickering over their fighting styles and newly discovered personal secrets.
After meeting with Eddie, the Smiths decide to fight together to preserve their marriage. They kidnap Danz from his high-security prison to use as a bargaining chip. He reveals he was merely bait, an intern hired jointly by their employers after they discovered the Smiths were married, in the hopes of the Smiths killing each other. John and Jane discard their separate contingency plans and make their last stand together, fending off an assault of heavily armed operatives inside a home decorating store. The film ends with the couple meeting the marriage counselor again, where the Smiths state how much their marriage has thrived, with John encouraging him to ask for an update on their sex life to which he quietly answers "10/10".
Nicole Kidman was originally cast as Jane Smith, but when Brad Pitt dropped out from the film, Kidman dropped out, too. Doug Liman then considered Will Smith and Catherine Zeta-Jones for the leads, as well as Johnny Depp and Cate Blanchett. Pitt came back to the project when Gwyneth Paltrow was cast as Jane. Paltrow later dropped out from the role, leading to Angelina Jolie coming on board.[4][5]
Screenwriter Simon Kinberg came up with the idea for the film after listening to a couple of his friends who were in therapy for their marriage. Kinberg noticed that the way they were describing it sounded "aggressive and mercenary" and he "thought it would make an interesting template for a relationship inside of an action film."
The production eventually went $26 million over-budget, forcing Liman to use money from his own savings account to build a set in his mother's garage. He then destroyed it with a hand grenade.[6]
Three soundtrack albums were released from the film: a film score composed by John Powell, a U.S. soundtrack with songs used in the film and an International Soundtrack with the song by Pink Martini replaced with KansasCali. The albums were released at different times to avoid confusion; the former was released on June 28, 2005, and the latter on June 7, 2005.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith: Original Motion Picture Score | |
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Film score by John Powell | |
Released | June 28, 2005 |
Genre | Film score |
Length | 43:54 |
Label | Lakeshore Records |
Mr. & Mrs. Smith Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | |
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Soundtrack album by Various artists | |
Released | June 7, 2005 |
Genre | Film soundtrack Pop/Rock |
Length | 1:05:40 |
Label | Lakeshore Records |
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Mr. & Mrs. Smith opened on June 10, 2005 in the United States and Canada in 3,424 theaters. The film ranked at the top in its opening weekend, accumulating $50,342,878. Mr. & Mrs. Smith went on to gross $186,336,279 in North America and had a worldwide total of $478,207,520. It was the highest-grossing film for both superstars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but was later surpassed by World War Z for Pitt and Maleficent for Jolie.[1]
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gave Mr. & Mrs. Smith an approval rating of 60% based on 215 reviews, with an average score of 6.10/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Although this action-romance suffers from weak writing and one too many explosions, the chemistry generated by onscreen couple Pitt and Jolie is palpable enough to make this a thoroughly enjoyable summer action flick."[8] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received a rating average of 55 out of 100, based on 41 critics, which indicated "mixed or average reviews".[9] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[10]
Simon Braund of Empire gave the film a positive review, describing it as "a full-on action flick, subversive rom-com and weapons-grade star vehicle that's drenched in Tinseltown glitz, from a director who knows how to put the money on the screen while his tongue's firmly in his cheek".[11] Daniel Saney of Digital Spy gave the film four stars out of five, saying "Its ideas are often borrowed, and it's hardly deep and meaningful, but it's a fantastically fun film".[12] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 stars out of 4, he praised the chemistry between the lead actors, saying "What makes the movie work is that Pitt and Jolie have fun together on the screen and they're able to find a rhythm that allows them to be understated and amused even during the most alarming developments".[13] In a negative review, Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle described the film as "awful" and stated that "The tiny smidgen of cleverness on display here is contained entirely in the premise. The follow-through is nonexistent".[14]
In 2006, New Zealand author Gavin Bishop accused the makers of the movie of plagiarizing his 1997 school book The Secret Lives of Mr and Mrs Smith, starring a husband and wife living apparently dull suburban lives but unbeknown to the other both work as spies, and said he intended to sue if a law firm willing to share proceeds if successful would approach him.[15][16]
A single-disc DVD of the film was released on November 29, 2005, and a two-disc unrated version of the film was released on DVD on June 6, 2006. During director Doug Liman's audio commentary on the single-disc DVD release, he mentions that he was not able to use as much sex and violence as they had originally filmed, in order to obtain a PG-13 rating for the film. The film was released on Blu-ray on December 4, 2007. It includes the extra material from the 2005 single-disc DVD release but does not include the additional material from the 2006 two-disc unrated version.
The government of Colombia criticized the film, especially for showing the capital Bogotá as a small village in the middle of the jungle with a hot and humid climate.[17] Mayor Luis Eduardo Garzón and President Alvaro Uribe Vélez invited Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, and the producers to get to know the city and to realize their mistakes.[18]
In 2007, a pilot for a spin-off television series was made for the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) network. Set six months after the end of the film, it was written by Simon Kinberg and directed by Doug Liman. Kinberg described the proposed television series as "Married... with Children with guns."[19] The roles of John and Jane were played by Martin Henderson and Jordana Brewster. On website The Futon Critic, Brian Ford Sullivan criticised the chemistry between Henderson and Brewster and ended his review stating: "While there's always a few gems that get locked away in the networks' vaults each year, this decidedly isn't one of them".[20] ABC decided not to commission the series.[21]
The film is parodied in Treehouse of Horror XVIII, a 2007 episode of the animated TV series The Simpsons.[22]
In June 2010, Jolie stated that she and Pitt had inquired about a sequel to the film but were dissatisfied with the story. Jolie stated: "We did ask somebody to look into Mr. & Mrs. to see if they could crack a sequel, but there wasn't anything original. It was just, 'Well, they're going to get married, or they've got kids, or they get separated.' Never great."[23]
In February 2010, it was reported that Regency Enterprises was developing a prequel to the film which would be titled Keeping up with the Joneses, and would not feature either Pitt or Jolie. The story would follow a pair of spies who pose as a married couple when they graduate agency training. Akiva Goldsman was attached to produce.[24]
In July 2011, it was announced that Hong Kong studio New Asia Entertainment Group was to produce a remake entitled Assassin Couple. The film was to star Donnie Yen and Cecilia Cheung in the lead roles, and the studio stated that while the film would share some similarities with Mr. & Mrs. Smith, it would feature a new storyline. The budget for the film was set at $18.7 million.[25][needs update]
In February 2021, Amazon announced that a TV series reboot based on the original film, starring Donald Glover and Phoebe Waller-Bridge was set to be released on Prime Video in 2022.[26] However, due to creative differences with Glover, Waller-Bridge exited the project in early September 2021, with her role to be recast.[27] In April 2022, it was reported that Maya Erskine took over the role from Waller-Bridge.[28]
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