Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

The Whip

New member
Did I just miss which book they were making into the next movie?

Debt of Honor would be unworkable as a movie and would the ones after it wouldn't make sense without Debt of Honor's shocking and prophetic finale.

Another Jack Ryan movie would either require a major retooling of one of the books, or a completely original Jack Ryan story.
 

Goonie

New member
Isn't Sam Raimi attached to this new Jack Ryan series? I think I read that online somewhere, maybe it was mania.com. Hopefully he doesn't turn it into a Spiderman 3.
 

Indy_Chic

New member
Goonie said:
Isn't Sam Raimi attached to this new Jack Ryan series? I think I read that online somewhere, maybe it was mania.com. Hopefully he doesn't turn it into a Spiderman 3.


Whoa...now I have this image of Jack Ryan opening up his closet and pulling out this sticky black suit...:eek:
 

bflah91989

New member
I heard earlier this year that Ryan Gosling was taking over as the next Jack Ryan. I wouldn't mind seeing him in a Red Rabbit even though that was my least favorite of the novels up to Sum of All Fears.
 

Le Saboteur

Active member
AndyLGR said:
Harrison stopped doing these that they have used much younger actors in Ben Affleck and Chris Pine.

Ford was too old for the role even way back when.


Following a moment of grief for Ford's diminished career, it would be appreciated if one of the mods could re-title this thread to something more appropriate.

For everybody else, hang on. Your first trailer for Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is about to begin. Clancy's former analyst has handed in his credentials and opted for the Jason Bourne School of Spycraft.

 

Sea Monarch

New member
Le Saboteur said:
Ford was too old for the role even way back when.


Following a moment of grief for Ford's diminished career, it would be appreciated if one of the mods could re-title this thread to something more appropriate.

For everybody else, hang on. Your first trailer for Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is about to begin. Clancy's former analyst has handed in his credentials and opted for the Jason Bourne School of Spycraft.

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/FZtVfmTZftk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I think Chris Pine is an interesting, if not inspired choice. I'm sure he will be up to the challenge, also. But is it just me, or does it feel like Hollywood is giving most of the best male lead roles, to a small handful of actors?

Now, I know the only other franchise thus far, that Pine has been cast in is Star Trek. And there's certainly nothing wrong with a very good actor contributing his talents in more than one tentpole picture. Heck, I'm glad, of course, that Lucas overcame his reservations, and decided to let Ford star in more than one of his sagas.(y) (y)

But I also admire him, for not automatically taking, what could have been, a lazy approach in casting choices. :hat:

It seems that right now, if you're last name is Pine, Hardy, Hemsworth, Levitt, Gosling, or Downey Jr. it's a great time to be acting. And all of these guys do a great job, (in most projects, anyway). But, except for Downey, who is older, and has been turning in great performances(if not always in great movies,) for years, most of these guys strike me as being talented, but not really standing out from the collective acting pool.

I suppose I am lamenting the seeming lack of true Movie Stars in this generation. They all seem to have the same personality, at one point or another. Pine, being the exception, as he seems to go for that rye Ford/Nicholson vibe.
I know for many years Ford was the go to guy for a certain type of role. But that's just it, he was usually preferred for a CERTAIN TYPE OF ROLE. I'm glad he was given opportunities to flex his acting muscles in other movies outside of the Lucas universe, and even outside of the acting genre, in general.
But while he was an action star, and a lead actor, there were many other male actors, that had different persona's, that all stood out, and brought something unique to a picture that differed from what their colleagues would have brought. You always knew the difference between a Ford, Eastwood, Cruise, Hanks, Gibson, Russell, Costner, Selleck, Burt Reynolds flick. They each have their own style.

However, I see very little difference in style, generally speaking, from many of the newer up and coming actors, except for what side of the pond they come from. While, maybe this could be due to them having a little diversity in style, and not being pigeonholed/stereotyped just yet, I can't help but sense it's more likely due to a certain blandness, and lack of charisma, with the exception of a couple of them.

I'm sure given time, some of these guys will turn out to be the Ford's/Hanks's of their generation. Right now though, they feel like the Hartnett/Slater's of the month! (note: Though Slater stood out a bit, because he also went for that Nicholson vibe)

Makes me glad to see actors like Craig, and Cumberbatch, gaining clout. (y)

I thoroughly enjoyed Pine in both Star Trek's, and most other projects I've seen him in, and I'm sure he'll make a great Jack Ryan. I just don't want to see him in everything. Let's get some diversity, and think out of the box. :whip:
 
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Finn

Moderator
Staff member
Le Saboteur said:
Your first trailer for Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is about to begin. Clancy's former analyst has handed in his credentials and opted for the Jason Bourne School of Spycraft.
Too bad we never got to know what would have been Tom Clancy's reaction to seeing that.



No, wait. Maybe we did.
 

Sea Monarch

New member
Finn said:
Too bad we never got to know what would have been Tom Clancy's reaction to seeing that.



No, wait. Maybe we did.

If I'm understanding you correctly Finn, it's so true. Bourne is about the polar opposite, of what Clancy intended Jack Ryan to be!
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Finn said:
No, wait. Maybe we did.

He just couldn't take it any more?


Or with a slight re-write:

"No, wait. Maybe we will."

As you mentioned his many ghost writers, maybe the real Tom Clancy will eventually stand up and give his review.


What I liked about the Ryan/Clark novels was the detail of process and protocol; the sense of reality he was able to give to the stories in spite of some of the incredible things that occur within them.
 

Sea Monarch

New member
Montana Smith said:
He just couldn't take it any more?


Or with a slight re-write:

"No, wait. Maybe we will."

As you mentioned his many ghost writers, maybe the real Tom Clancy will eventually stand up and give his review.


What I liked about the Ryan/Clark novels was the detail of process and protocol; the sense of reality he was able to give to the stories in spite of some of the incredible things that occur within them.

I second that. And his writing being as such, it comes as no surprise then, to have heard, more than a couple of times, of his accuracy in details causing certain elements of the U.S. military, and government branches both, to be concerned, so that Mr. Clancy be careful not to reveal to much. Though he writes fictional stories, his stories have often been regarded, by people in the know, to be rather spot on!
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Sea Monarch said:
I second that. And his writing being as such, it comes as no surprise then, to have heard, more than a couple of times, of his accuracy in details causing certain elements of the U.S. military, and government branches both, to be concerned, so that Mr. Clancy be careful not to reveal to much. Though he writes fictional stories, his stories have often been regarded, by people in the know, to be rather spot on!

I'm tempted to go back and read the last three unread books I have:

The Bear and the Dragon; Red Rabbit and The Teeth of the Tiger.

Looking at the Tom Clancy wiki page it seems as though everything after that might just be written by other authors, but utilizing the Clancy name for sales purposes. As Finn wrote in the RIP thread, that needn't get in the way of a good story.

Except for the timeline errors...

Finn said:
I've also worked my way through his main continuity, a.k.a. the "Ryanverse". Solid reads, almost all of them. And even if I made a snarky comment towards ghost writers, I personally don't care how a story is born as long as it's good.

I don't know if it's due to having too many guys at work on one book or what, but the timeline seems to get mucked up a bit on the titles released post-2000. Enough references to the past are made to create an impression of the same continuity, but some dates (especially those of electoral terms of Ryan and his predecessors and successors) don't quite add up. Also, Jack Jr. appears to age a little too quickly. As if the series was semi-retconned with no obvious notion made about it.

I'm a stickler for accurate timelines!
 

Le Saboteur

Active member
Le Saboteur said:
Facts? They're pesky things.

They're also stubborn. Paramount might be learning a brand new fact as well.

The Hollywood Reporter said:
Adds Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore: "The affection for the franchise was definitely 50-plus. The young audience didn't turn out for the opening weekend. The question now becomes, does a younger audience now discover it, whether in theaters or on home entertainment?"

The movie in question? The newly released Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, with Chris Pine picking up where Ben Affleck left off. Paramount clearly wanted to relaunch 'Jack Ryan' as a credible franchise, but didn't give the kids a reason to care.

The Hollywood Reporter said:
Director Kenneth Branagh's reboot, starring 33-year-old actor Chris Pine and in a bid to relaunch the series, opened to a soft $18 million over the long Martin Luther King Jr. weekend. More than a third of the audience was over the age of 50, while only 15 percent was under 25, according to exit-polling service CinemaScore. All told, 63 percent of the audience was over the age of 35.

With an average ticket price of $8.35 that's about 2.2-million people who took in the flick over the long weekend. 63% of that is ~1.3 million people over the age of 35 that still cared enough about Jack Ryan to partake of the movie. With a budget of ~$60-million there's a chance that it'll become a modest hit, but not the kind of return Paramount was looking for.

Full article: 'Jack Ryan' Franchise in Question After Snub By Younger Moviegoers

You can count on Disney paying attention. Will a new Indiana Jones movie with a new actor in the lead face a similar result?

That's two soft lobs. Be forewarned though; think it through before you start spastically banging on the keyboard like a monkey high on speed.

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Fun fact: New World monkeys are the only primates with fully prehensile tales.

Gannador!
 

IndyForever

Active member
Paramount waited too long nothing wrong with The Sum Of all Fears they should have made a follow up ASAP but Affleck career got sidelined by being with Lopez so it never got the sequel to maximise on the impact.

Indy is different its a proven blockbuster the same people who turned out 6 years will come again bringing their families & internationally it will be a massive hit now China can have the movie (Spielberg vetoed the Chinese olympics so KOTCS was denied a release) throw in Russia & India alone will add a lot of $$$.
 

Forbidden Eye

Well-known member
Le Saboteur said:
You can count on Disney paying attention. Will a new Indiana Jones movie with a new actor in the lead face a similar result?

No because Indiana Jones has always been a bigger deal than Jack Ryan.
 

Moedred

Administrator
Staff member
Hope you don't mind I moved these posts from the Disney/Paramount thread.
Branagh already is counting on bringing the new crew back for a three-part franchise. "For my money if there are more Jack Ryan films, we make the second and third at the same time," says Branagh. "I feel there's a route to take him to the White House, a young Kennedy-style president. That would be interesting."
This interview is probably from more optimistic times. If you haven't read the books, he's probably talking about Debt of Honor and Executive Orders, which occur mostly within the same month. There's one more before Jack Jr. takes center stage. Plus two spinoffs with John Clark, already scripted.

This could make for an epic franchise. Many including Tom Clancy agree Debt of Honor is his best story, with incredible set-pieces, one of which is credited with predicting 9/11. But Hollywood has been afraid to cast even a handful of Japanese villains for 20 years, ever since the minor backlash over Rising Sun.

The real reason this bombed is the five films have moved steadily away from the source material, until they unshackled themselves from the pesky books entirely. It's like putting those Narnia kids in an all new adventure, promising to get back to the series only if audiences consume some filler. Young people read, JK Rowling proved they aren't afraid of thick tomes, and Clancy's post-Cold War stories are still timely.

So now that the franchise is shelved, again, my hope is someone like Steven Soderbergh grabs Ford and the Star Wars cast in their spare time and dusts off the Cardinal of the Kremlin script. A movie about SDI Star Wars in the 80's, get it? I guess the Connery cameo of Marko Ramius wouldn't happen, but a fan can dream.
 
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Le Saboteur

Active member
Moedred said:
Hope you don't mind I moved these posts from the Disney/Paramount thread.

I do, but I don't suppose it really matters since I lost my own narrative thread and didn't care enough to go back and correct it.

Moedred said:
This could make for an epic franchise. Many including Tom Clancy agree Debt of Honor is his best story, with incredible set-pieces, one of which is credited with predicting 9/11. But Hollywood has been afraid to cast even a handful of Japanese villains for 20 years, ever since the minor backlash over Rising Sun.

It could be, but Paramount needs to move it away from the star vehicle they keep wanting it to be and turn it into a true ensemble piece. They would also need to make multiple parts if not an episodic series. The byzantine nature of Clancy's plots don't lend themselves to a two-hour action movie.

Moedred said:
The real reason this bombed is the five films have moved steadily away from the source material, until they unshackled themselves from the pesky books entirely.

I lay the blame squarely at Ford's feet. Paramount wanted to turn it into a star vehicle for Ford and the early nineties were right around the time he started really believing his own mythomania. In this particular case, he was far above the source material. Jack Ryan (read: Ford) would never secretly report to the President, he would trumpet all the shenanigans before Congress!


Moedred said:
So now that the franchise is shelved...

Not quite yet. It'll probably eke out a profit, and I mean eke, but there's still a chance international audiences could tale to the flick. I believe it has a couple of big international premieres left...

Yeah, it hasn't even hit Europe yet. They could conceivably put it over the top.

Now if that Queen & County movie ever gets greenlit...
 

Lance Quazar

Well-known member
Moedred said:
The real reason this bombed is the five films have moved steadily away from the source material, until they unshackled themselves from the pesky books entirely. It's like putting those Narnia kids in an all new adventure, promising to get back to the series only if audiences consume some filler. Young people read, JK Rowling proved they aren't afraid of thick tomes, and Clancy's post-Cold War stories are still timely.

Of course that's not the reason it bombed. Jack Ryan books are even less read and less well known than they were 20 years ago. No one cares that the movie doesn't hew to any of the novels.

No one cares about Jack Ryan anymore. Period.

And the movie was dull and routine. Just didn't bring anything new to the genre.

In the post-Bourne world, this was a snooze fest. Jack Ryan means nothing on his own anymore, so you have to bring the goods.
 

Moedred

Administrator
Staff member
Le Saboteur said:
I lay the blame squarely at Ford's feet. Paramount wanted to turn it into a star vehicle for Ford and the early nineties were right around the time he started really believing his own mythomania. In this particular case, he was far above the source material. Jack Ryan (read: Ford) would never secretly report to the President, he would trumpet all the shenanigans before Congress!
Yes, one also cannot yell at the President in the Oval Office, at least not for very long. Ryan's character doesn't appear until a few hundred pages into Clear and Present Danger, and he remains part of an ensemble until the end of Debt of Honor. Not to sound like a snob, but I'm often amazed at the laziness and ineptitude of some screenwriters. Turning these into star vehicles could just as easily be the studio's fault.
Lance Quazar said:
Jack Ryan books are even less read and less well known than they were 20 years ago. No one cares that the movie doesn't hew to any of the novels. No one cares about Jack Ryan anymore. Period.
You could say the same about these obscure, decades-old superhero villains and story arcs comic book fans are flipping over. Fan approval carries a lot of cache when launching a film franchise. The Ryanverse novels loomed large in the public consciousness, and a lot of curious non-readers would appreciate abridged film adaptations if done right. (Unlike for example Days of Future Past, which anyone can probably download and read in 15 minutes.)
 

Forbidden Eye

Well-known member
While I don't disagree unfamiliarity with Jack Ryan from younger people hurt the movie's box office chances, the January release date also didn't help. When you release a movie in January that isn't an awards movie left-over from the previous year you're pretty much asking for your movie to fail.
 
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