True to the reboot craze, Jack Ryan will be revived for Amazon’s forthcoming straight-to-series drama Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. The character first appeared in Clancy’s popular ‘80s-spawned adventure novels, but has since been translated to screen for a variety of titles. Alec Baldwin played him in The Hunt For Red October (1990), Harrison Ford in Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994), Ben Affleck in The Sum of all Fears (2002), and Chris Pine in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014).

This time around, John Krasinski (13 Hours, The Office) will lead with Abbie Cornish (Limitless) as his co-star. Lost co-creator Carlton Cuse and Fringe producer Graham Roland are set to executive produce, with Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, Andrew Form, David Ellison, Mace Neufeld, and Lindsey Springer also on the production roster. Dan Sackheim (The Americans) is attached as the series producer/director, but now the show has added another director.

Deadline reports Morten Tyldum has been tapped to helm the opening episode of Amazon's Jack Ryan series. The announcement comes at an odd time for Tyldum. His latest project, the big budget space epic Passengers, underperformed at the box office and was skewered by critics, earning an unsavory reputation as a Stockholm Syndrome fantasy.

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The Jack Ryan franchise isn’t exactly a guaranteed lifeboat, as its appeal has seemingly waned in recent years, too. Neither Sum of all Fears nor Shadow Recruit landed sequels, and the latter received mixed critical reviews. In fact, an exit poll from CinemaScore (via THR) found that more than a third of the cinema-going audiences for Shadow Recruit during its opening weekend were over the age of 50, with only 15 percent of the viewers under the age of 25.

Still, Tyldum is an acclaimed director, having earned an Oscar nomination for his work on The Imitation Game in 2014, and there’s no reason he can’t recover from a cinematic misstep. On Amazon’s end, the streaming service seems to be targeting younger audiences’ apparent disinterest. They’ve touted the show as a modern reinvention, focusing on Ryan as a rising CIA agent thrust into a dangerous field assignment for the first time. It also touches on hyper-relevant terrorism themes, following Ryan as he uncovers a new breed of terrorism that threatens destruction on a global scale.

Despite a few past hiccups, the series is in good hands with Tyldum, Sackheim, Cuse and the like. Perhaps with both a fresh platform and format, Jack Ryan will renew enthusiasm for Clancy’s lauded hero.

A premiere date for Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan has not yet been announced.

Source: Deadline, THR