Warner Bros. is circling John Mulaney to headline a reimagining of Get Smart, the spy comedy franchise that began as a 1965 NBC sitcom, TheWrap reports. Seth Grahame-Smith, who wrote The Lego Batman Movie, is on script duty, with Oppenheimer producer Charles Roven and Andrew Lazar producing. Deadline first reported the news.
The important caveat: this is early development. No greenlight, no date, no deal announced. But the shape of the project tells you a lot about how studios are approaching mid-budget comedy in 2026.
The number that matters: $230 million
The 2008 Get Smart, starring Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway, grossed more than $230 million worldwide. That figure is the entire reason this file was reopened. It is not franchise-tentpole money, but it is exactly the tier studios have spent the last few years failing to reliably hit with original comedy.
For media planners and marketers, the read-through is simple. Studio comedy has largely migrated to streaming, where it functions as churn-reduction content rather than an event. A theatrical comedy with a pre-existing title, a proven box office comp and a recognisable star is one of the few ways the genre still gets a wide release and a real P&A budget.
Why the IP is doing the heavy lifting
The original Get Smart was created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry and starred Don Adams as agent Maxwell Smart. It ran five seasons, moving from NBC to CBS for its final year in 1969, with the finale airing on May 15, 1970. It won seven Emmy Awards, including two for Outstanding Comedy Series.
That heritage matters less for audience recall in 2026 than it does for the pitch itself. A title with awards history and a $230 million film comp de-risks the internal conversation. It is IP as underwriting, not IP as fandom.
The Mulaney calculation
Mulaney is an unusual choice for a wide-release lead, and that is the interesting part. His commercial track record sits in standup and streaming: Emmy-winning specials in 2018 (Kid Gorgeous at Radio City) and 2023 (Baby J), Netflix’s John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in LA, and a six-season writing run on Saturday Night Live, where he co-created the Stefon character with Bill Hader.
His on-screen credits skew animated or supporting: Big Mouth, Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, plus Documentary Now! and the short-lived Fox sitcom Mulaney. Which means the studio would be betting on a specific, well-defined comic voice with a loyal streaming and live audience, rather than a proven theatrical opener.
What to watch if you’re tracking this
- Budget tier. A sub-$60 million spy comedy behaves very differently at the box office than a $100 million-plus action-comedy. The 2008 film’s spend sets the reference point.
- Release strategy. Warner Bros. has been theatrical-first under its current leadership. A streaming pivot would signal the comedy-in-cinemas thesis is still shaky.
- Co-star casting. The Carell-Hathaway pairing gave the 2008 film two demographic entry points. A single-lead structure narrows the marketing funnel.
- International mix. Spy comedy travels; American standup-driven humour often does not. Roughly how much of the $230 million came from overseas will shape the ambition here.
The broader signal
Studios are quietly rebuilding the mid-budget slate, and they are doing it with dormant titles rather than new ones. For anyone selling audiences on original comedy — in India or globally — that is the constraint to plan around. The genre is coming back to cinemas, but mostly wearing a name it already owns.
Nothing is locked. Grahame-Smith still has to deliver a script, and Mulaney’s involvement remains a target rather than a signature. Treat this as a development datapoint, not a slate entry.
Source: TheWrap
