Mr & Mrs Smith showrunner says series is 'the antithesis of Bond'
The TV reboot sees Donald Glover and Maya Erskine lead the series.
The highly-anticipated reimagining of Mr & Mrs Smith will finally hit Amazon Prime Video in a little over a week, and while it's easy to put all spy thrillers in the same group as James Bond, showrunner Francesca Sloane doesn't believe the new series is at all similar.
The TV reboot follows two strangers, played by Donald Glover and Maya Erskine, who land a job working for a "mysterious spy agency that offers them a glorious life of espionage, wealth, world travels and a dream brownstone in Manhattan".
While this seems dreamy, their new identities are part of an arranged marriage as Mr and Mrs John and Jane Smith.
Ahead of the show's premiere, Sloane said she wanted to "lean into the perspective of the vulnerability of a relationship, and kind of follow that in terms of being the antithesis of sort of a Bond-type film, in terms of the way we normally see spies" when creating the show.
"The tone of the show is the thing that I think was the trickiest piece, and it's ever-evolving, which is part of the fun of it," Sloane explained.
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"But the way that Donald [Glover] and I had initially thought about it is like, what is the antithesis of a typical Bond-type thing?
"And the first thing that I sort of came up with was the idea of a spy coming home after, like, a crazy chase sequence, and taking off their shoe and having a blister because they wore the wrong shoe.
"The in-between moments that you don't normally see in something like that, and the vulnerability of that. But then also, Donald and I both come from the comedy world, but very grounded, very sort of bizarre, surreal comedy."
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Many portrayals of James Bond are often as a "peerless spy, notorious womaniser and masculine icon", but this isn't something Glover and Sloane had planned for the Mr & Mrs Smith reboot.
Sloane explained: "We were like, what happens if like Louie meets James Bond? What do you get when you put those two things together, when things feel hyper-real in a hyper-surreal atmosphere of fantasy?
"And now, what I think is sort of the tone, it's like, how do you ground fantasy? How do you ground an action thriller, and how do you make it funny sometimes, too?"
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The new series debuts on Prime Video on Friday 2nd February, and will see the newly-named John and Jane navigate a "high-risk mission every week while also facing a new relationship milestone".
As their cover story becomes even more complicated when they begin catching feelings for one another, the stakes only continue to grow.
Mr & Mrs Smith premieres on Friday 2nd February on Prime Video. Sign up for a 30-day free trial of Prime Video and pay £8.99 a month after that.
Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guideto find out what's on.
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