And we’re back again with our (at least) daily announcement of a reboot, sequel, prequel; this time word comes from NY Mag’s Vulture that Fox’s Regency Enterprises is moving forward with Mr. & Mrs. Jones, a pseudo-prequel to the 2005 action comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith which spawned the paparazzi’s even more intense obsession with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. However, the flash to the past will not feature Pitt and Jolie, but rather is sort of an origin story of a similar but differently named couple, showing how a pair of twenty-something spies are set up as a fake married couple when they graduate agency training. How fun.

As much as I enjoyed Mr. & Mrs. Smith, this feels cheap to me. Mr. and Mrs. Smith didn’t know they were spies when they were married, so that added a decent level of comedy to the fun action. All this concept does is set up a fake marriage between spies, likely with the idea that they’ll really fall in love, but have marriage problems while working undercover. Seems like a lot of the potential for some humor is already going to be covered by Tina Fey and Steve Carell in Date Night, the only difference being trained spies vs. innocent civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time. Of course there’s the chance it could turn out all right (mostly dependent on who they actually cast in the project), but I can’t help but find more than the intended similarities between this concept and Vulture’s reference to Dumb & Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd.

Obviously, the real motivator here is money, and not only making it, but spending less of it to get this made. A real sequel bringing back Pitt and Jolie with lots of expensive action would be quite the costly endeavor. But you’d think with as much as the studios love to bank on safe tentpoles that will draw in a crowd, Mr. & Mrs. Smith (which raked in $478 million worldwide) with Jolie and Pitt would be well worth the cost. But this is just another in Hollywood’s trend of extending familiar titles, without all the expensive familiar faces, for better or worse. Stay tuned to see who will be playing Mr. and Mrs. Jones in this. Anyone interested?

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I don’t think Universal knows what the hell to do with the Bourne franchise. They tried getting a new script written for two years following The Bourne Ultimatum in 2007, but to no success. Then late last year, series director Paul Greengrass suddenly quit Bourne 4 over “problems with Universal,” prompting Matt Damon to say that he wouldn’t continue as Bourne without Greengrass. Well, that’s all they needed to hear, as they’re considering a prequel without Damon. Empire has the scoop straight from Matt Damon himself: “There’ll probably be a prequel of some kind with another actor and another director before we do another one.”

Damon added that, “just because I think we’re probably another five years away from doing it – we’ve got to get a script…” It’s almost ironic that Universal has gone through numerous writers for Bourne 4 and yet they still “don’t have a script.” In fact, even Damon admits that Universal doesn’t know what the heck to do. “If you have any ideas, call Universal,” he laughed. “They’d love for you to get in touch!” I’m sure they would! It sounds like they’re desperate to keep this franchise alive, probably because they’re in need of another big success (and this is one of few successful franchises they’ve had in recent years). But it was supposed to end after Ultimatum and now they just don’t know where to take it next. Or they just can’t agree upon a script.

Empire actually puts a positive spin on this, saying: “And in a way, this could mean that audiences could well get the best of both worlds – they would get a prequel that shows just how badass Bourne was before he became the amnesiac assassin with a conscience, and eventually get to see an older, wiser Damon reprise the role for one final time.” Well, if you put it that way, that actually sounds pretty damn cool. But in all seriousness, does anyone want see some kid play Bourne in a prequel before going back to Damon again years later? Whatever the case, this isn’t confirmed, so don’t take it as fact until we hear from Universal.

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