Author Lee Child has had huge success with with his Jack Reacher novels whose character was a six foot five, blue eyed, muscular male. So fans were a little surprised when 5’7” brown eyed, trim build Tom Cruise was cast in the role when it came to making a movie of the books. Not that it did the films any harm as ‘Jack Reacher’ (2012) earned a decent $218m and its follow up ‘Jack Reacher : Never Go Back (2016) made a modest $162m. But after that there were no further films had fans asking why ‘Reacher author blocked a third Tom Cruise movie.
Why ‘Reacher’ author blocked a third Tom Cruise movie….
Child explained, ‘“I had a clause in that movie contract that after two movies I had a veto whether we would do any more. I exercised that veto,” he told Collider. “The deal was done in 2005, and it finished in a long, long time of development. Then the two movies finished in 2017. That first movie in particular was huge. It came out in December 2012. By January 2013, like one reporting cycle later, I had eight old paperbacks in the Top 10. You cannot buy that, and you cannot turn it down.” Instead the author opted for a steaming series which he described as a “fabulous luxury” .
The author went on to say, ‘ “By 2017, of course, there was a whole new landscape. Binging television had been invented. Broadband was much more widespread. It was a thing now. It was not a thing in 2005. It hadn’t been invented, and nobody, I think, now would ever go for a feature film over streaming television for two reasons. First of all, the running time — it’s fabulous luxury. It really is. Eight hours, 10 hours, 12 hours, whatever you want. You can tell the whole story, all the light and shade, all the quiet parts, all the fun parts. It doesn’t have to be rammed together for 90 minutes of content.”
The future of Jack Reacher…
The Prime Video series cast Alan Ritchson who exactly fits the characters description in the book and 2022 saw the first series and the series has just been renewed for a sixth season.
related feature : ‘Jack Reacher : Never Look Back’ – reviewed
related feature : Neil Marshall reveals his favourite films & the movies that inspired his career
source :collider
