C’mon Hollywood #131

… give us more Jack Ryan!
by Sturdy

For anyone that likes spy novels, there really isn’t a more popular and successful hero than Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. He’s a great character and an easy guy to root for. Even better for Hollywood, he’s a character that has a proven track record at the movies, regardless of who’s playing him. So you have to wonder why we’ve gone this long without any more “Ryanverse” movies making it to the big screen. Jack Ryan appears in many books, but he’s the main protagonist in nine different books. Four of which have already been made. That leaves five books just waiting to be turned into films.

Unfortunately, the first four movies have kind of screwed things up as far as timelines go. That could be one possible reason for the delay in making any more. As much as I loved Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan, Tom Clancy was right to have concerns about putting him in PATRIOT GAMES. According to the storyline, that’s actually the youngest Jack Ryan. Then, technically SUM OF ALL FEARS happens after the other three movies. So the movie timeline and the book timeline don’t exactly match up.

Despite the screwed up timeline, Ford is still the best.

But all is not lost. I say go with it and wrap the remaining five books around what they’ve already started. I also suggest Hollywood make two concurrent series of films featuring Jack Ryan, but with two different actors. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Alec Baldwin in the role, and if I have to choose an older actor, I’d definitely want Harrison Ford back in the role. To his defense, Ben Affleck did a pretty good job as Jack too. He could fill Jack’s shoes in “The Red Rabbit” and let Harrison take the rest from “Debt of Honor” to “Teeth of the Tiger”. Ok, so that would be four for Harrison and only one for the Affleck, but that’s pretty much the way it plays out in the books.

Give him some credit, Affleck was pretty good too.

While we’re on the subject of the “Ryanverse”, I think it’s about time they made John Clark a household name too. He’s the main star of “Without Remorse” and “Rainbow Six”. Willem Defoe played him in CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER but that’s definitely not who I’d want to take over. He just didn’t work for me because I never pictured Clark as a skinny, aging guy that looks like he’s waiting for his next heroin fix. There are plenty of actors out there that could pull it off, but I’d want someone a little younger a lot tougher, but still a talented actor.

Oh yeah, Baldwin also played Jack Ryan…

So c’mon Hollywood, bring Jack Ryan back to the big screen. There’s plenty of great material out there for more Ryan movies and Harrison Ford is probably feeling nostalgic after donning the fedora again. Sign him on to a trilogy and film them back-to-back-to-back. The source material is just too good to pass up.