The Last Samurai director Ed Zwick in talks to helm Jack Reacher 2

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Despite only grossing $80 million domestically, critics seemed to like Tom Cruise as the titular character in Christopher McQuarrie's JACK REACHER. We have heard rumblings of a sequel for a while now but it has been fairly quiet since McQuarrie and Cruise have been making MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE ROGUE NATION. Now, the heat on JACK REACHER is picking up again with a potential director named as well.

Deadline reports that THE LAST SAMURAI's Ed Zwick is being brought in to write a new draft of JACK REACHER 2 alongside Marshall Herskovitz. Zwick is also being eyed to direct. The original draft was penned by THE EQUALIZER's Richard Wenk. While JACK REACHER was based on Lee Child's first novel, One Shot, the sequel will be based on the 18th book in the series, Never Go Back.

Reacher heads back to his old military base in Virginia to take a woman to dinner who is now the commanding officer. By the time he gets there, she has been arrested, and Reacher finds himself being charged with pummeling one guy and fathering a child with a woman. He can’t remember either transgression but gets to the bottom of it with cunning and sometimes brute force.

Zwick and Herskovitz worked together on the Anne Hathaway/Jake Gyllenhaal dramedy LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS. Zwick's most recent film was PAWN SACRIFICE with Tobey Maguire, but he is best known for directing GLORY, COURAGE UNDER FIRE, and LEGENDS OF THE FALL. He seems like an intriguing choice for the more action-oriented JACK REACHER franchise, but I would not be opposed to seeing more movies featuring Cruise as the character.

Christopher McQuarrie will remain on board as executive producer. There is a chance Rosamund Pike could reprise her role from the first film, but I would anticipate with such a large narrative gap between the source novels that there are likely to be changes fans of the book may not anticipate. Still, with Cruise in as high demand now as he ever was, I would expect this project to come together very soon.