Jack Reacher TV Series In the Works
Jack Reacher may be headed to television. Lee Child, whose Jack Reacher book series was turned into ..
Jack Reacher may be headed to television. Lee Child, whose Jack Reacher book series was turned into a pair of Paramount movies starring Tom Cruise, said today that there is a deal in place to turn the novels into a TV series. According to Child, there will be no more movies with Cruise and he also wont star in the potential TV series.
The movies, 2012s Jack Reacher and 2016s Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, were produced by Skydance and Cruise/Wagner and distributed by Paramount. We hear that the potential series would be co-produced by Skydance Television and Paramount Television, with Skydance taking lead. According to Child, it would be toplined by a new actor more befitting the imposing, burly character he created in his books. Sources said the project is still in nascent stages, with the producers still figuring out what the next chapter in the franchise should be.
Skydance TV and Paramount TV recently teamed up to successfully reboot as a TV series with a new actor another famous book series that already had been made into action movies, Tom Clancys Jack Ryan for Amazon.
Child, who has written 46 Reacher novels, praised Cruises acting chops in an interview with BBC Radio Manchester, but that “Cruise, for all his talent, didnt have that physicality,” noting that the the actors size threw off his some of his core readers who saw the films.
“I really enjoyed working with Cruise. Hes a really, really nice guy. We had a lot of fun,” Child said. “But ultimately the readers are right. The size of Reacher is really, really important and its a big component of who he is… So what Ive decided to do is – there wont be any more movies with Tom Cruise. Instead were going to take it to Netflix or something like that. Long-form streaming television, with a completely new actor.”
He added: “Were rebooting and starting over and were going to try and find the perfect guy.”
We hear that it has not been determined yet where the potential series would be pitched, with streaming, broadcast and cable all considered possibilities.
Christopher McQuarrie directed the first film in the Jack Reacher franchise, which grossed $218.3 million worldwide. Its sequel, directed by Edward Zwick, fared less well, grossing $162.1 million globally.
