Interestingly, The Rock tweeted his congratulations to Cruise about getting the Reacher role, saying that it was a role he would have loved to have gotten. You and me both, Dwayne.
Cruise talks a bit about the role and acknowledges his apparent unsuitability for it: http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=83511
That was me before. Now that I've actually read a few of the Reacher novels...all I've got to say is I never imagine Reacher as short, gay, squeaky and insane. And what kills me is that Cruise says he got Lee Child's blessing. I have no reason to doubt that's true, but I can't figure out what the studio would have given Child that would make him completely ignore the character he wrote just to give Tom Cruise another star vehicle.
What is this complex that anonymous internet posters have with calling Tom Cruise short? He's average height. Scott Caan, Dustin Hoffman and Michael J. Fox are short, but no one ever gets hung up on their height. No one watched Battlestar Galactica and ripped every male on the show who wasn't Tahoma Penikett or Michael Hogan for being short. It's almost as pathetic as needing Tom Cruise (or Kevin Spacey, or whoever else) to be gay.
^ He's short compared to Jack Reacher. And Hoffman and Fox's height are frequently commented on but unlike Cruise, they're not box-office draws these days so they tend not to get mentioned so often. Also, unlike Cruise, they don't play action men. Caan is hardly a household name compared to either of these three, certainly not a leading man, so again, it's unsurprising that people talk about his height. Having said that, how did he get so short, given the size of his old man? For all my bitching about it, this is shaping up to be a great cast, from a fine director and writer. Cruise remains a very watchable leading man. And the existence of this film will not cause all of my Reacher books to suddenly combust and burn up. I'd still like to see Reacher played by someone who matches the description of the character in the books, but I'm looking forward to seeing this and judging it on its own merits.
And here's what Lee Child has to say about it all http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...childs-savage-antihero-on-screen-6252359.html
The first footage from this movie - which may now be called simply Jack Reacher - has aired at Comic-con and gets a good write-up here. A little spoiler-ish, if you haven't read the book (I'm not sure if it all comes from the book either). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the report suggests that Cruise's Reacher will have more of a Jason Bourne-esque fighting style. Not really surprising, since the way that the Reacher of the books fights is quite dependent on his stature, which famously wee Tom doesn't have. Having said that, the MI movies have shown that Cruise can handle a good martial arts type fight scene. http://www.comingsoon.net/news/cinemaconnews.php?id=89563