John Mulaney could be trading stand-up comedy for secret-agent antics, with the comedian and actor circling the lead role in Warner Bros.’ upcoming reboot of the classic spy comedy Get Smart, Variety has confirmed.
The project remains in the very early stages, but Mulaney is being considered for the role of Agent Maxwell Smart, the well-meaning but famously inept secret agent at the center of the franchise.
Seth Grahame-Smith, who most recently wrote 2025’s Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, is attached to write the screenplay. The film will be produced by Andrew Lazar and Chuck Roven.
If the deal moves forward, Mulaney would step into one of television comedy's most recognizable characters, a role made famous by Don Adams in the original series.
Created by comedy legends Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, Get Smart premiered in 1965 and ran for 138 episodes through 1970. Adams starred as Agent Smart, a highly intelligent but hopelessly incompetent operative working for the CONTROL agency.
Barbara Feldon played Agent 99, Smart's capable partner and eventual romantic interest, while Edward Platt portrayed the agency's chief.
The series became a major television success, combining slapstick comedy with a parody of the spy thrillers that dominated popular culture at the time. Get Smart won seven Emmy Awards during its run, including three acting honors for Adams and three victories for Outstanding Comedy Series.
The franchise previously made the jump from television to the big screen in 2008, when Steve Carell took over the role of Maxwell Smart.
Directed by Peter Segal, the 2008 film featured Anne Hathaway as Agent 99, with Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin and Terence Stamp among the supporting cast.
The movie opened strongly with $38 million and eventually grossed approximately $230 million worldwide against an $80 million production budget. While it was not a blockbuster on the scale of Hollywood's biggest franchises, its commercial performance was sufficient to establish the property as a viable film comedy.
Mulaney's potential casting would give the reboot a markedly different comic flavor.
Known for his sharply written stand-up routines and distinctive delivery, the four-time Emmy winner has increasingly expanded his work beyond the comedy stage. His most recent starring vehicle was Netflix's Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney, an unconventional anti-talk show that ran for 12 episodes in 2025.
He is also scheduled to embark on a nine-show New York comedy engagement, Mulaney Takes Manhattan, beginning in January.
On the film front, Mulaney is set to appear in David O. Russell's sports biopic Madden, portraying Trip Hawkins, the founder of Electronic Arts, the video game company behind the Madden NFL franchise.
Mulaney has previously poked fun at his attempts to break further into Hollywood acting. During the 2024 Governors Awards, he joked that he had auditioned for the part of "Young Cop" in Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride!, another Warner Bros. production.
A starring role in Get Smart would represent a much bigger opportunity and potentially establish Mulaney as the face of a major studio comedy franchise.
For Warner Bros., meanwhile, the reboot offers a chance to revive a property with a long history in both television and film while introducing Maxwell Smart to a new generation.
The project is still taking shape, and no casting deal has been finalized. But if Mulaney ultimately takes on the role, one of comedy's most recognizable modern voices could soon be delivering the iconic misadventures of Agent Maxwell Smart to a new audience.