It read: "Which box-office hero is so smitten with the lush leading lady of his next picture that observers liken him to a puppy nipping at her heels-and other parts? Meanwhile, his wife can't figure out why he's been so distracted lately."

  Ah, those were simpler times. Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston were still the happiest couple in Hollywood, and Pitt
and Angelina Jolie were penciled in as the handsomest couple scheduled to hit the

screens in summer 2005 as mutually oblivious husband/wife contract killers.

  The movie being shot in Rome, New York and Los Angeles was Mr. & Mrs. Smith, fashioned as a smart and sexy romantic-comedy/thriller about a boring married couple with a lethal secret. Pitt is John Smith, who's secretly an assassin. Jolie is Jane Smith, who is secretly the same. Complicating their already-troubled marriage is the fact that they've both been hired to kill each other. "It's not, 'He's cute, she's cute, they live happily ever after�'" says director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity). "But rather it's a love story that on its own would sustain an entire movie mixed with an action movie that on its own would sustain an entire movie."

  And then there was the quote Jolie gave Premiere magazine about the nature of their characters. See if this doesn't sound ironic now: "When you meet us, we're in therapy because we have a very bad marriage. We don't really know each other, so we have this very bizarre comic relationship. We bicker as you do after six years of marriage. Often you brush your teeth next to each other, you go to bed, you go to work and have no idea who the person is you're living next to. So after years of marriage, they discover that they're both hit men and that they're spies from enemy agencies. And then they have to kill each other. So everything is a metaphor for marriage. Every time they say, 'I'm gonna kill you' or 'I wish I could strangle you,' they go to that extreme. They have some pretty big fights. But in the end it's a very positive pro-marriage movie."

  Of course, the context of everything changed with the announcement on January 7 of this year that Pitt and Aniston were separating amicably (they've since filed for divorce). US Weekly magazine immediately chimed in with a cover story that suggested Pitt and Jolie were having an affair. In the aftermath it became immediately clear that, as they say, denial is not just a river in Africa.

  "This particular story is completely untrue," Pitt told Access Hollywood. "Because these tabloids are making so much money, and yes, I consider US Weekly a tabloid, they go to great lengths to corroborate their stories, whether they are true or not."

  Jolie went on her own offensive, telling Britain's OK! magazine, "Brad is a married man. I wouldn't sleep with a married man. I have enough lovers. I don't need Brad."

  As if to hammer home the point, in March when teasers for the movie were shown to exhibitors at the annual ShoWest fest in Las Vegas, the two posed for pictures awkwardly, never touching.

  What does this mean for a movie that reportedly features steamy romantic scenes between Pitt and Jolie? The Hollywood Reporter quoted an insider at Fox Studios as saying, "This is like hitting the jackpot." Within a few weeks, the awareness level of Mr. and Mrs. Smith shot through the roof, certainly a good thing in a summer that includes the last Star Wars movie and a Tom Cruise sci-fi flick (War of the Worlds).

  Of course, off-screen scandal can also backfire. Taylor Hackford to this day maintains the on-screen love affair of then-married Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe killed his movie Proof of Life. And Kevin Smith says the same about the breakup of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez and his movie Jersey Girl.

  As always, the box office has the last word.

- Jim Slotek