John Mulaney wants to blow something up with a pen-gun. Or at least Warner Bros wants him to try.

The comedian is circling the lead role of Agent Maxwell Smart in a reboot of "Get Smart" at the studio, according to Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, both of which reported the news within half an hour of each other on Tuesday. Emphasis on circling. Both outlets are careful to note this is early, unsigned, nothing-locked-in territory. No start date, no full cast, no director attached.

What is attached: Seth Grahame-Smith, who wrote last year's "Now You See Me: Now You Don't," is on board to pen the screenplay. Producers Andrew Lazar and Charles Roven are shepherding the project, though THR's report spells the latter's name differently, a small wrinkle that doesn't change who's actually running point.

"Get Smart" started life as an NBC sitcom in 1965, dreamed up by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry as a deadpan send-up of the spy-thriller boom that Bond had kicked off a few years earlier. Don Adams played the title bumbler for five seasons and 138 episodes, with Barbara Feldon's Agent 99 doing the actual competent spying and Edward Platt as the long-suffering Chief. The show picked up seven Emmys along the way, three of them for Adams and three for the series itself.

The format got a big-screen run once already. Peter Segal directed the 2008 version with Steve Carell as Smart, Anne Hathaway as Agent 99, and Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin and Terence Stamp filling out the Control agency. It wasn't a smash but it did fine business, opening at $38 million domestic and finishing its run at $230 million worldwide against an $80 million budget. Warner clearly sees enough in the property to try again, close to two decades on.

For Mulaney, this would be his splashiest film lead to date. He's coming off hosting Netflix's "Everybody's Live with John Mulaney," a 12-episode late-night experiment that wrapped last year, and he's got a nine-date New York stand-up run called "Mulaney Takes Manhattan" starting in January. He's also set to play Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins in David O. Russell's "Madden." Mulaney has joked publicly about auditioning for a bit part in Maggie Gyllenhaal's Warner Bros release "The Bride!" and not landing it. If "Get Smart" comes together, the studio relationship finally pays off, and with a much bigger role than "Young Cop."

What happens next depends on how fast Warner wants to move. Grahame-Smith still has a script to write, there's no director in the frame, and the studio hasn't confirmed a timeline. Early talks have a way of falling apart. For now, Maxwell Smart's shoe phone is ringing, and Mulaney hasn't picked up yet.