If you’ve seen the trailer for the upcoming Get Smart movie adaptation you know that Steve Carell appears to have the character down pat without even saying a word in the trailer. Carell talked with Sci Fi Wire about his take on the character and gave some details about what we can expect from the movie as a whole.
First of all, Carell says not to expect an impersonation of the original Agent Maxwell Smart, Don Adams, when Carell does finally speak. Carell wants the character to be his own, so he’s not doing an impression of Adams or channeling the actor. He also doesn’t want the character to be a huge joke: ”I don't want the Maxwell Smart character to be perceived as sort of a bumbling idiot. He's not an Inspector Clouseau. He's proficient, and he can take care of himself. And he sort of gets the job done counter-intuitively, but he gets the job done."
As for the movie’s plot, apparently this version of Get Smart won’t be picking up where the television series left off, but will instead go back to the beginnings. That’s right – we have an origin story. At first the character will be just an analyst for CONTROL, ”Essentially he's a tech nerd. He listens to chatter, and he can assimilate information, and he's very good at that. And he gets great reconnaissance done from the office. But his goal and dream has always been to become an agent. But he's never stepped up. But some things transpire that enable him to step into that position. He finally gets his chance, at sort of an advanced age.” Those “things” that transpire apparently cause a diminished number of CONTROL agents, so expect a huge disaster, but since this is Get Smart and not “24”, I’m guessing it’ll be something funny at the same time.
And what about Agent Smart’s signature shoe-phone? It’ll be in the movie too, even in this day of tiny cell phones. ”They had a very… clever way of incorporating the shoe phone into the movie, in terms of why would that technology be in a modern-day movie, because people want to see that.”.
Get Smart won’t be in theaters until next summer, so hopefully more information like this will slowly leak out over time. After all, what’s a governmental organization without an information leak, especially with agents like Maxwell Smart in service, right?
