Sure, Steve Carrell’s next movie, Evan Almighty seems doomed – it’s the most expensive comedy of all time and the trailers indicate that none of that cash was spent on jokes. But don’t count him out yet. Carrell has other projects lined up, one of which is ideally suited for him – a big screen version of the classic TV spy comedy Get Smart.
It seems like Carrell’s been attached to this film forever, and it hasn’t been going anywhere, but now the shoe phone has rung and the movie is going to start filming early next year. And word is coming in that Carrell’s agent Maxwell Smart has found an Agent 99 – Anne Hathaway.
This is great casting, if only because both the current Hathaway and the Agent 99 of the original series, Barbara Feldon, elicit similar groinal reactions from me. Feldon was key to my adolescent development, which was forever scarred by the massive disappointment of the Get Smart movie, The Nude Bomb, which in just about every way failed to deliver.
The bad news is that the Get Smart movie is being directed by Peter Segal, who has a history of truly awful and anonymous movies behind him, including two Adam Sandler atrocities. I’m hoping that Carrell isn’t too beaten down by the career fallout of Evan Almighty and he takes complete control of this production, reducing Segal to a glorified gopher.