Jack Ryan, the CIA analyst created by the late suspense novelist Tom Clancy, has had a long and colorful history. He appeared in more than a dozen of Clancy’s novels, even becoming president of the United States at one point. In the movies, Jack Ryan has been portrayed on screen by many different actors across different eras: Alec Baldwin in The Hunt For Red October, Harrison Ford in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, Ben Affleck in The Sum of all Fears and Chris Pine in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.
However, despite the enduring popularity of the novels, the Ryan franchise has hit various hiccups in recent years, following Clancy’s death in 2013. Affleck’s Ryan film never got a sequel, and neither did Pine’s. But now, Jack Ryan’s coming back, in an episodic TV series.
Amazon has picked up a ten-episode season for a new version of the Ryan mythos, to be titled Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, The Wrap reports. John Krasinski, best known as Jim from The Office, will step into the Jack Ryan role for the new series. The plans for the series were first reported a few months ago but now the series has received a formal green light.
Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan is produced by Paramount and Skydance Television and will shoot in Europe and Africa as well as the United States. Graham Roland and Lost co-creator Carlton Cuse will executive produce the show; other family names on the producer roster include Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, Andrew Form, David Ellison, Mace Neufeld and Lindsey Springer. According to the description:
The series follows Ryan (Krasinski) as he uncovers a pattern in terrorist communication that launches him into the center of a dangerous gambit with a new breed of terrorism that threatens destruction on a global scale.
This sounds like it could work. The template is 24– another action-adventure TV series that features a hero going toe-to-toe with terrorists; it even has a hero named Jack. Krasinski, meanwhile, recently starred in the Michael Bay-directed 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, so he’s no stranger to muscled badassery.
The only drawbacks are that Amazon has never really mounted this sort of high-budget, action-adventure, targeted-at-older-males type of series before, and no attempt to re-cast Jack Ryan since Harrison Ford played him has gone over that well. But even so, the character is pretty durable and deserves a chance in a TV series.
There’s no release date yet for Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. We’ll let you know when that changes.
