After two moderately successful feature film outings, starring arguably the biggest movie star in the world, author Lee Child is taking the Jack Reacher franchise to television for a reboot that will make do without the star power of Tom Cruise. The two films, Jack Reacher and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back saw the popular character brought to life in a manner that ensured a certain level of box office success, but also meant Reacher himself would be drastically different from how he was depicted in the more than 40 different novels devoted to his peripatetic lifestyle.
The primary difference being the character’s physical size compared to that of Tom Cruise. And while Cruise is no slouch in the action department (just check him out in this summer’s Mission: Impossible - Fallout), apparently the physical differences between the actor and Child’s fictional character were enough to motivate the author to look toward a television reboot, which would recast the role with someone whose physical dimensions more closely resemble those discussed at length in the novels.
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The news of a potential Jack Reacher television series came when Child was interviewed on BBC News, and stated that “We’re rebooting and starting over and we’re going to try and find the perfect guy.” The perfect guy, it seems, will be someone who more accurately fits the character’s “physicality,” which is apparently paramount to Child, who followed that up by saying:
“…ultimately the readers are right. The size of Reacher is really, really important and it’s a big component of who he is… So what I’ve decided to do is – there won’t be any more movies with Tom Cruise. Instead we’re going to take it to Netflix or something like that. Long-form streaming television, with a completely new actor.”
The would-be reboot will be produced by Paramount Television, which recently had similar success this year with another action franchise starring a guy named Jack, in Amazon’s Jack Ryan. In that case, Amazon might be the ideal home for a Jack Reacher series, as Netflix seems to be shoring up its original content to include shows and movies it owns outright. Regardless of where the series lands, it will be interesting to see how this potential reboot moves forward, and who winds up having the physical stature to be cast in the lead role.
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Screen Rant will have more details on the possible Jack Reacher TV series as they are made available.
Source: BBC News