Jack Ryan Reboot

[Admiral_Young]

Kenneth Branagh is directing "Jack Ryan" a reboot of the Tom Clancy thriller series. He will also be appearing in the film as the villain which is unnamed as of yet. The film stars Chris Pine as Jack, and has just added Keria Knightly.

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=93500

Kevin Costner was offered a role in the film as well, but hasn't accepted. He's also considering an offer from Luc Besson's next movie.

 

[Skywalker]

Pine as Ryan and Branagh directing? Consider me interested.

I wonder which book they're going to adapt. I never actually read any of the books, but my dad used to be a big Clancy fan, so I'm somewhat familiar with the series. Think they'll start off with Patriot Games again, since it's Ryan's first chronological adventure? Or maybe they'll skip straight to Red Rabbit and just allude to the events of PG.

 

[CorporalClegg]

I thought they were going to do original stories similar to Bond?

 

[Enterprise is Great]

It's an original story and not based on one of the novels. The novels are too dependent on the Cold War as an ongoing event so unless they want to make it a period piece they need to do original stories.

 

[Admiral_Young]

The plans for what they intent to do have changed multiple times. The quote from the producer they link it is from their original story back in 2009. As far as I know it's an original story. Steve Zallian worked on one of the drafts.

 

[Admiral2]

Sigh.

Sum of All Fears was supposed to be the reboot.

Kenneth Brannagh, yes. Chris Pine?

Tom Clancy's novels are not "all dependent on the cold war." Sum of All Fears (the book), Executive Orders, Teeth of The Tiger and Dead or Alive all deal with middle east terrorism. Rainbow Six had environmentalist wackos as the big bad. Debt of Honor is about naval conflict with Japan. The Bear and The Dragon and SSN are about land and naval conflict with China. Only SSN doesn't have Jack Ryan in it, and any one of these stories could be adapted to screen without having to set it in the 1980's as the Fears movie demonstrated.

Sometimes I hate Hollywood...

 

[JoeZhang]

The Clancy books are a right-wing circle jerk, I read a few of them and he always likes to slip in some millionaire banker who's a great guy.

 

[Admiral2]

The Clancy books are a right-wing circle jerk, I read a few of them and he always likes to slip in some millionaire banker who's a great guy.

So the Ryan movies should be reduced to Bondesque BS because Tom Clancy's a conservative? Ryan is rich. Has been since the first book. Does that mean Red October the movie sucked?

Nothing about the original character needs rebooting. There are plenty of non cold war Ryan stories that can be translated to film.

And the bad guy in Rainbow Six was richer than god, if that makes you feel better...

 

[Captaindemotion]

I'm not a fan of the books, though I did like some of the movies, namely Red October, Clear and Present... and, yes, Sum of All Fears.

The thing is, though, and I acknowledge Clancy's huge success - they've tried numerous times to set this character up as a successful franchise and it hasn't really worked. Red October was a hit but centring on Connery's Soviet Commander, rather than Baldwin's Ryan.

They then replaced Baldwin with Harrison Ford, then still box-office dynamite and still his two movies were solid hits rather than runaway successes. When Ford's obituary is written, I don't think Jack Ryan will feature as prominently as Rick Deckard or Richard Kimble, never mind Han Solo or Indiana Jones.

Then the attempted reboot with the hot young actor. But still not enough success to get a sequel. So why will this time be any different?

In particular, I'm baffled by the decision to make a movie not based on a Clancy novel. Like I say, I'm not a fan of the books, but, credit where it's due, the guy has sold a zillion quillion novels and has legions of fans. So not only are they ignoring their proven success, they're making life more difficult by themselves by having to write a new story. Does this mean that they have to pay Clancy less in royalties or something?

What puzzles me too is that, without Clancy's proven brand and his dedication to technical specs, adherence to scenarios that could just happen, is there anything particularly interesting about Jack Ryan himself? I mean, he's not like James Bond, who is a hard drinking, womanizing, occasionally wise-cracking veteran assassin, beloved in the books and the big screen.

Ryan is a family man and analyst, not a man of action. The situations he gets into are what makes him interesting rather than he himself. Why not just create their own character, if they're not going to adopt Clancy's novels? Will Ryan be able to compete with the likes of Bourne, Bond or the likes?

Finally, just a thought. Lee Child's Jack Reacher character is finally given a movie adaptation and they do away with the book title and just call it Jack Reacher; now Jack Ryan is given similar treatment. Does Hollywood not trust us audiences to recognise characters unless their names are in the titles?

 

[Admiral2]

^^^Well, in the case of Jack Reacher, would you really know who Tom Cruise was supposed to be playing if they didn't include the name in the title? (A question for those of you who've read the Reacher novels, mostly...)

 

[Captaindemotion]

^Good point! Though if you haven't heard of the books, is it going to make any difference? And if you have heard of them, you might be too busy picking your jaw up off the floor to go see it...

 

[Admiral2]

^Good point! Though if you haven't heard of the books, is it going to make any difference?

Nope, not at all...

And if you have heard of them, you might be too busy picking your jaw up off the floor to go see it...

True.

But in the case of Jack Ryan, your biggest potential audience is always going to be people who have read the books. As you stated, none of the movies were huge successes, and neophytes using them to familiarize themselves with the character will be confused by three different portrayals...all of which will be meaningless anyway when the reboot comes to town.

If Paramount really wanted to build a big, consistent franchise, they'd stop worrying about when the stories are set and just try their best to stick to them. They need to actually try to get the book readers to spend money on movie tickets, and the best way to do that is to bring the written stories to life.

 

[Captaindemotion]

If Paramount really wanted to build a big, consistent franchise, they'd stop worrying about when the stories are set and just try their best to stick to them. They need to actually try to get the book readers to spend money on movie tickets, and the best way to do that is to bring the written stories to life.

Maybe, maybe not. I'm not sure that casual audiences - and these movies will have to appeal to more than the Clancy readership, big and all as that is, to really make a buck - will necessarily want to see a series of movies set in a sort of 'alternate history' of the 1980s or 1990s.

I know that the likes of X-Men First Class or Captain America succeeded in doing so, but I think audiences are more accepting of this sort of thing in a comic book adaptation than in a political thriller like the Clancy books.

A lot of the Ryan thrillers are now as old as, say, Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity novel was when it was adaptated and updated for the big screen, to huge success. Would TBI have been as successful if they'd kept the original setting in the 1970s? They kept the same idea - amnesiac spy/ assassin - and updated it and gave it new trappings, while the sequels kept the names but ditched everything else.

So I do think that the Ryan thrillers could succeed financially and critically if updated, even if this alienates the core audience. But I'm still puzzled by the decision to totally ignore the source material and go with a standalone story.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

I was thinking over it last night and I think that they are reluctant to do these movies based on the books is because in later novels Jack Ryan becomes President of the United States and Hollywood wants Ryan to be an action hero instead of the guy behind the scenes running things and making political decisions. They want him out there punching and shooting the bad guys and not sitting in the Oval Office behind a desk.

 

[CaptainCanada]

In particular, I'm baffled by the decision to make a movie not based on a Clancy novel. Like I say, I'm not a fan of the books, but, credit where it's due, the guy has sold a zillion quillion novels and has legions of fans. So not only are they ignoring their proven success, they're making life more difficult by themselves by having to write a new story. Does this mean that they have to pay Clancy less in royalties or something?

They've already filmed pretty much all Clancy's early novels, apart from The Cardinal of the Kremlin (one of the more minor novels, and Cold War-specific) and the much later prequel Red Rabbit (which was generally judged to be a bad story, and is also set in the Cold War). The later novels with President Ryan aren't franchise-suitable.

Realistically, if they're set on a new Jack Ryan movie their options were either to remake one of the Ford movies (Red October is too rooted in the Cold War and probably too well-known, The Sum of All Fears is the most recent unsuccessful reboot) or go with original stories.

 

[Timby]

The later novels with President Ryan aren't franchise-suitable.

They aren't just unsuitable for a franchise, they're bad. He was starting to move away from character-driven military porn in the mid-'90s, but everything after Executive Orders is basically several hundred pages of his political platform.

 

[Admiral_Young]

It's very possible that like Nolan's Batman Trilogy that they will use the novels as source material while constructing their own unique take on Jack Ryan. Like I said, the plans for this jumped around and changed quite a bit, almost every draft until Branagh was named director.

 

[Admiral2]

If Paramount really wanted to build a big, consistent franchise, they'd stop worrying about when the stories are set and just try their best to stick to them. They need to actually try to get the book readers to spend money on movie tickets, and the best way to do that is to bring the written stories to life.

Maybe, maybe not. I'm not sure that casual audiences - and these movies will have to appeal to more than the Clancy readership, big and all as that is, to really make a buck - will necessarily want to see a series of movies set in a sort of 'alternate history' of the 1980s or 1990s.

Why do people persist in thinking this?

Islamic terrorism is an ongoing threat TODAY. Environmental terrorism is an ongoing threat TODAY. The possibility of having to deal with China as a rogue state is an ongoing possibility TODAY, all of which means that several of Clancy's stories can be adapted and set TODAY without creating an "alternate history" of anything. This is what I'm trying to say, and I'm afraid to few people - especially the idiots in Hollywood - have the imagination to understand that.

 

[Skywalker]

The problem with using China as a potential villain is that the studio would risk having the films banned in that country, which would cut off a significant portion of their foreign box office. Take the upcoming Red Dawn remake, for example. Originally the invaders were supposed to be Chinese, but in post-production they used digital wizardry to make them North Korean instead.

And weren't the villains in The Sum of All Fears (the novel) Palestinian terrorists (along with some East Germans)? Yet in the movie the villain was a neo-Nazi, for some weird reason.

 

[Timby]

And weren't the villains in The Sum of All Fears (the novel) Palestinian terrorists (along with some East Germans)? Yet in the movie the villain was a neo-Nazi, for some weird reason.

Yep, Palestinians working with an East German scientist who was bitter over Germany's reunification as a democracy. I'm not sure why the switch was made in the film, but my guess would be for international box office concerns.