Phoebe Waller-Bridge Exits Mr. & Mrs. Smith Reboot

Fleabag and Killing Eve acterss Phoebe Waller-Bridge has stepped away from the planned reboot of Doug Liman’s 2005 film Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The series, which centers on a married couple who are secretly assassins for opposing firms, was originally a film which starred Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Back in February, news broke that an updated version was in the works with Bridge playing opposite Community and Solo: A Star Wars Story star Donald Glover. Waller-Bridge reportedly left the TV version, which is set to air on Amazon Prime Video, due to creative differences. Glover remains attached to play Mr. Smith.

The new broke at Deadline, who note that the series is still being written. The series showrunner is Francesca Sloane (Atlanta, Fargo). Sloane is credited as co-creating the TV iteration, along with Glover, who serves as an executive producer.

Both Glover and Waller-Bridge have overall deals at Amazon. The company had no comment on Waller-Bridge’s departure.

Waller-Bridge is staying busy, though; she will appear in the upcoming, fifth Indiana Jones film and helped write Daniel Craig’s final James Bond outing, the upcoming No Time to Die.

“[I was asked to do] dialogue polishes and to offer things really. It’s about just offering different alternatives,” she said on the Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio UK. “They did give me some scenes and then be like, ‘Can you write some alternatives for this or have another idea about where it could go in the middle or how it would end?’And then I would just give them options and various scenes and then they would take what they want. But there was a lot people writing – the director [Cary Fukunaga] was a writer on it as well. And there’d been a few writers before.”

There are few specifics known at present about the Amazon take on Mr. and Mrs. Smith, or how they will stretch the premise to series length. At this point, all that had been made public was the involvement of Glover, Waller-Bridge, and Sloane. The original report suggested that the series would air in 2022. if true, it is not immediately clear whether or how replacing one of their leads will slow down the process.

Are you looking forward to seeing Donald Glover’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith series? Are you sad to see Phoebe Waller-Bridge go? Sound off in the comments below, or hit up @russburlingame on Twitte to yell about comics, TV, and movies.