Warner Brothers kicked off their morning event in the 6500-seat Hall H at the San Diego Convention Center with an extended look at Get Smart, a modern adaptation of the Don Adams TV show, starring Steve Carell. Carell has managed to juggle his work as Michael Scott on The Office with big-budget films over the last few summers. Last year, he filmed Evan Almighty and, while that was a critical and financial flop, Get Smart looks like money in the bank.
Before anyone came on stage, they debuted a three or four minute extended trailer to the excited crowd. The footage was more than I think anyone was expecting. What surprised me the most was the huge scale of the action scenes and how good of an action movie it would look like, if it wasn’t for the humor.
As for the comedy in the trailer, it was great, vintage Carell. He’s just the right guy to jump into Don Adams’ shoes. It’s hard to get an exact beat on how he’s playing the character, but there is certainly some Michael Scott in him. So, after the footage was seen, the director Peter Segal came out and talked a little about the movie, nothing major, but then came the big surprise: he welcomed most of the cast to the stage.
The big names were Steve Carell, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnston, and Heroes star Masi Oka, as well as Ken Davitian (Borat’s obese and hirsute wrestling partner), and Nate Torrence (the token fat guy in the sketch comedy show on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip). Carell and The Rock were especially charming and funny, answering a bunch of question, some tedious, from the audience. There wasn’t a whole lot of major information given, but Carell did call the film a “comedic Bourne Identity”, which just sounds awesome.
At the end of the Q&A, Carell was asked about the upcoming season of The Office. He had nothing to tell, however, because he hasn’t seen any of the scripts yet and hasn’t been told where the story is going. He does know that, as of yesterday, 13 scripts had been written.
-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Photo courtesy of Oscar Dahl)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
