Tom Cruise's Cancelled Jack Reacher 3 Vs. Alan Ritchson's Jack Reacher Amazon Series

 

The Jack Reacher franchise is no doubt a hit as evidenced by Lee Child’s 25 Reacher novels to date and the two blockbuster Jack Reacher movies starring none other than Tom Cruise. The character of Reacher is one of mystery and intrigue being a former Army Investigator who lives as a drifter moving from state to state and solving murders and the like along the way requiring him to call upon his investigative training and experience as danger inevitably lurks about every corner. When Tom Cruise was cast as Reacher in the first movie many fans balked at the idea of Cruise being able to believably portray Reacher as he is described as being 6’5’’ in the books while Cruise is only 5’ 7’’ in real life. This wasn’t an issue though as Cruise was able to pull off the larger-than-life presence of the character via his commanding screen presence and effectively bringing to life a powerhouse ex-army investigator you don’t want to mess with especially in close quarters. Lee Child even explained his reasoning behind casting Cruise to his fans at the time:

Explaining the casting decision, author Lee Child said that it would be impossible to find a suitable actor to play the giant Reacher and to recreate the feel of the book onscreen, and that Cruise had the talent to make an effective Reacher. Child also said, "Reacher's size in the books is a metaphor for an unstoppable force, which Cruise portrays in his own way." Of Cruise's relatively small stature, Child said, "With another actor you might get 100% of the height but only 90% of Reacher. With Tom, you'll get 100% of Reacher with 90% of the height."

 

 

And the gamble paid off as the first Jack Reacher movie was a brilliant film that blended action together with a compelling smart murder mystery that explored the character of Reacher in-depth opposite his dynamic love interest played by Rosamund Pike. The followup to Jack Reacher (2012), Jack Reacher: Never Go Back in 2016 was not quite as good a film with the story seeing Reacher working to clear the name of his successor in the army military police played by the sensational Cobie Smulders (How I Met Your Mother, The Avengers). The film certainly has its moments but it definitely doesn’t compete in terms of quality to the original film. Many felt Mission Impossible 2 was a step down from the first Mission Impossible and then Mission Impossible 3 came out and reinvented the franchise bringing it back to form and so I was hoping that had Jack Reacher 3 been made the same sort of magic would have been worked. However, it is not to be as Lee Child has pulled the plug on the Cruise era of Reacher films and instead has handed over the rights of the character to TV, with a Jack Reacher TV series coming to Amazon soon starring Alan Ritchson in the lead role. Lee Child had the following to say on his decision to cut the cord on Cruise’s version of the character:

"I really enjoyed working with Cruise. He's a really, really nice guy. We had a lot of fun," Child told the station. But ultimately the readers are right. The size of Reacher is really, really important and it's a big component of who he is. The idea is that when Reacher walks into a room, you're all a little nervous just for that first minute. And Cruise, for all his talent, didn't have that physicality. 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. And I want all those readers who were upset about Tom Cruise to help me out - participate in choosing the right actor for the TV series. We're rebooting and starting over and we're going to try and find the perfect guy.” 

 

 

And apparently, they did find the perfect guy in Alan Ritchson (Hunger Games, Smallville, Titans). From what I’ve seen of Ritchson onscreen he is a talented and versatile actor and while I don’t agree with Child that Cruise isn’t right for the role of Reacher I think this new iteration of the character with Ritchson sounds like a really good idea. Ritchson had some in-depth thoughts about the casting process and landing the role of Reacher:

“It’s funny, I actually didn’t get the role at first. I’m not exactly six foot five and I’m not exactly 250, and I had heard that they were being very specific with their physical demands. After working with Tom Cruise and a lot of fans being upset that he didn’t really have the physicality, as great as he was in the role, they really wanted to get that right. I was like, ‘Well, they wanna read me, but I know they’re gonna find someone like Dwayne Johnson, who’s a huge dude.’ I auditioned for the part and it was good, it was just that my take on it was a little different than what they had in mind, at the time.”

 

“There was a shake-up with who was casting, so they started again from scratch, and I’d already been passed on, as had everybody who did an audition. But when they came back around, they picked a few tapes that they’d seen already, and I was one of them, so they wanted me to come back and try again, and it worked out. The closer I got to that, the more familiar I became with the Reacher stuff. I’ve really fallen in love. I’ve read the books now and Reacher has some big shoes to fill, metaphorically speaking. I’m just so thrilled to be a part of it. It’s my favorite character that I’ve played yet.” 

It's great to hear Ritchson was able to prevail and land the role of a lifetime in what is sure to be a hit television show that could have a lot of life and sustainability in it with a lot of storytelling legs as indicated by Ritchson’s description of the game plan for the Amazon series:

“I don’t know how much I can say. I’ll say that we’re gonna be doing a book a season, so the first season will be the first book. I think that’s such a great way to do this. I can see why it’d be exciting as a film, but the slow burn is what I love so much about the books. The way that he goes down the checklist and picks apart these cases, you need time. It’s okay to enjoy that. I think spending a season on each book is gonna be really enjoyable for audiences.” 

 

 

And with 25 Jack Reacher novels to date not to mention the short stories and so forth that's at least 25 guaranteed seasons worth of stories. However, the series will never last that long if the adaptations of the books aren’t high-quality and audiences don’t respond positively to the material. However, I think they have a good game plan going into this and as long as everybody remains committed to doing the best possible job with the series in service of the Jack Reacher character and his millions of fans the series will be built for success for a long time to come. Exciting casting news has developed on this series as of late with the addition of the alluring Kristin Kreuk (Smallville, Chuck). Kreuk’s character Charlie is described as: 

“a refined former debutante who is living the Country Club life with her husband Hubble (Good Witch‘s Marc Bendavid), but who is much tougher than she appears.”

 

 

I haven’t read the first Jack Reacher book, “Killing Floor”, which the first season of the series will be based on, but have read the third Reacher novel “Tripwire”, and in that installment, Reacher romanced a young woman from his past as he worked a dangerous and mysterious investigation in the town he was inhabiting at the time as part of his travels and from what I’ve read online it is a common theme in the Reacher novels for their to be a love interest in the vein of the Bond girls from the 007 films so that leads me to believe that Kreuk’s character will serve as a love interest to Reacher as he gets caught up in a mystery which may put both of them in the villain's cross-hairs. Kreuk’s character being described as tougher than she appears despite being a socialite type sounds exciting to me and makes me think this character and furthermore this series will have a lot of edge to it which is for sure what you want in these life and death stakes thrillers. I can just imagine Kreuk's character dining at some socialite party when some killer comes lurking about only to find Kreuk's character going after him with a kitchen knife with such tenacity and drive. If Kreuk’s character ends up being a breakout hit with audiences it is possible that the creators will deviate from the books tradition of Reacher moving on from one love interest to another by possibly incorporating Kreuk’s character into future seasons moving forward even in just a recurring presence but who knows what will happen in the framework of the story: Kreuk’s character might be killed off as a season-ending twist or Kreuk may decide to pursue other projects moving forward. 

 

 

So while it would have been great to see Jack Reacher 3 with Tom Cruise who is not too old to play the character contrary to what Child had to say about the matter:

“Cruise was reluctant,” Child told The Sunday Times about the film franchise coming to an end. “He had his own investment in it, he was going to argue against it. It sounds extremely patronizing but I think it’s good for him. He’s too old for this stuff. He’s 57, he needs to move on, transition to being a character actor. He could get another 20 years out of it. He has the talent. He’s a terrific guy, very considerate, good fun.”

Now while I agree that Cruise should absolutely go back to doing character work and make films like A Few Good Men (1992), Rain Man (1988), and The Firm (1993) again I don’t think Cruise is too old to be an action star. Cruise is continuing to prove on an ongoing basis that age is just a state of mind with the ever-increasing scale of his stunts in the Mission Impossible films and the action-adventure film he is preparing to film in which he will travel into outer space for real and make history like no other before him even as he nears the age of 60. Cruise is an action-legend and like Harrison Ford who at 80 is also proving age is just a state of mind with his return to the role of Indiana Jones in the fifth installment in that franchise, Cruise is showing no signs of slowing down and he should absolutely do character-based dramas again but there's no reason why he can’t do both action films and dramas at the same time and no Cruise is not too old for Reacher. However, I appreciate Child’s perspective on the matter and it is totally his prerogative to take his character to TV, and to do so with Alan Ritchson in the lead role is a great choice. Ritchson, currently 38, is much closer to the age of the character in the original novel of 36 than Cruise ever was, not that it ever mattered when it came to story. In any case, Tom Cruise will go on to make another 12 Mission Impossible movies and a series of successful character dramas in between while Alan Ritchson will rock the small screen as Reacher with long-form storytelling giving the Reacher character full potential to tell a variety of high-stakes stories with an edge to them all while continuously progressing the Reacher character.