The best time for a Get Smartmovie would have been the late ’60s, when the original television series was still on the air. In fact, there was a theatrical Get Smart film in the works during the run of the show, but it was canceled when the theatrical release of Munster, Go Home!bombed at the box office. Many years later, in 1980, a Get Smart feature titled The Nude Bomb was released to theaters, but it also performed poorly.
Now we’re getting a remake version starring Steve Carell in the role that was so iconically defined by the late Don Adams. Will it do the show justice? Reportedly the budget was $80 million, a significant amount of which was probably put towards pointless effects. But the best thing Warner Bros. could have done with that money is to give a large amount to series creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, who probably even today could churn out a better script than Failure to Launchscribes Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember.
Despite its lack of original Get Smart talent, though, it could still be marginally funny. Yet the real problem is that it may be too outdated and obsolete for audiences to care. In the four decades since the show went off the air, there has been plenty of similar-themed movies, from spy spoofs to films with bumbling heroes. The following ten titles are the best evidence of why this new Get Smart movie is completely unnecessary:
The first half of this week saw a drought as far as new trailers are concerned. But when it rains it pours, and by the end of day Thursday the internet had received a relative monsoon of debuts, including the now-official release of the Sex and the City trailer, which Karina prematurely peeked at last Friday, and another awesome ad for Iron Man.
But the truly noteworthy trailers had to be those for three eagerly anticipated comedies, two of which we are seeing for the first time. First, there’s The Love Guru, which stars Mike Myers as his first originally created comedic character in more than ten years. Unfortunately, it kind of makes me wish he would just keep making Austin Powers movies. Maybe I just don’t get it, and maybe I should just accept that a Myers comedy is less about it and more about him. But it doesn’t look that funny. And I’m a person who can appreciate the making fun of Extreme and the parodying of Bollywood and the ridiculing of little people.
With Steve Carell hitting theaters today as a modern-day Noah to Morgan Freeman’s God in Universal’s biblical gamble Evan Almighty, I thought it would fun to look back on a time when Mr. Carell made a living by playing devil’s advocate … almost literally. In this clip of Carell and Stephen Colbert’s recurring Daily Show segment Even Stephvens, the two breakout stars debat Islam vs. Christianity. Colbert, who is a practicing Catholic in his personal life, argues for the Christian God. Carell’s response? “Stephen, what part of ‘there is no god but Allah and Muhammed is his prophet’ don’t you understand?”
With all of the effort to sell Evan to faith-based groups, you’ve got to wonder why this little artifact hasn’t sparked a totally overblown backlash.
***Proving that anyone who’s ever had a beer with Judd Apatow is going to have no trouble finding work this summer, Freaks and Geeks star John Francis Daley (seen above) has sold a script to New Line called The $40,000 Man. Per Variety, it’s about a “legendary astronaut and true American hero who finds himself horribly injured in a car accident and rebuilt by the government to be a bionic man, on a budget of $40,000 — which makes him not that bionic.”
***In other dude-com news, Jack Black and Todd Phillips are teaming up to develop something called Man-Witch for Warner Brothers. The pitch sounds something like School of Rock meets The Craft, but with Jack Black in the Neve Campbell part. Sexy!
***Steve Carell, Daniel Craig, and J.J. Abrams are among the notables who have been invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for 2007.
***Oh good! A Wild Hogs sequel is on the way! Your dad’s half-wit friend will be so pleased.
The best time for a 
