Why Did Tom Cruise Stop Playing Jack Reacher?

Despite ostensibly being one of the biggest movie stars in the world for over four decades, Tom Cruise isn’t an actor who has dipped his toes into franchise filmmaking all that often. While he has consistently risked his life to play Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible franchise and appeared alongside Paul Newman in the brilliant legacy sequel The Color of Money, Cruise has remained relatively focused on starring in original projects — we don’t talk about The Mummy remake. This made it all the more surprising when Cruise signed on to play the title role in the adaptation of Lee Child’s One Shot, the first novel in the Jack Reacher series. Considering the significant readership that the novels had, Jack Reacher presented the opportunity for Cruise to have his own gritty action series.

Jack Reacher was notable as being the first film that Cruise starred in that was directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the legendary screenwriter who had won an Academy Award for writing The Usual Suspects. While McQuarrie hadn’t been behind the camera since the cult classic The Way of the Gun, he had served as a screenwriter on many of Cruise’s projects in the 2000s. The relative success of Jack Reacher ensured that Cruise and McQuarrie would be locked in together for the rest of their respective careers, with the latter hired to direct the next four installments in the Mission: Impossible franchise and served as a producer and co-writer on Top Gun: Maverick. Although he continues to find success, with his incredible stunt work remaing popular, Cruise has all but given up starring in the Jack Reacher franchise.

The ‘Jack Reacher’ Franchise Crashed and Burned

Although the first film was a modest hit that surprised many of the skeptical book readers that were concerned about Cruise’s size, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back was a hugely disappointing sequel that eroded any good will for the franchise. The first film was a relatively restrained, neo-noir thriller that only exploded into moments of spectacle when the narrative called for it. Comparatively, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back opted to introduce every known cliché in the action genre, and lacked the well choreographed fight scenes that made the first film so good. Director Edward Zwick is certainly a talented storyteller with classics like Legends of the Fall and Glory under his belt, but his sensibilities were completely wrong for Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.

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Jack Reacher: Never Go Back received largely negative reviews and underperformed at the box office, signifying that Paramount Pictures wouldn’t be able to garner much enthusiasm for a third entry in the series if it was ever green lit. While perhaps McQuarrie could have revitalized the franchise had he returned to direct, his work on the Mission: Impossible sequels prevented him from spending time on Jack Reacher. Paramount later agreed to develop the Reacher television series for Amazon Studios, which served as a reboot set in an entirely different continuity. Although McQuarrie has hinted that he had ideas about an R-Rated threequel that could bring Cruise back, the pair has instead decided to focus their efforts on a new World War II movie co-starring Martion Cotillard and Henry Cavill.

Prime Video’s ‘Reacher’ Made the Film Franchise Irrelevant

Reacher proved to be a massive hit on Prime Video, becoming one of the streaming network’s biggest shows, solidifying Alan Ritchson as the most recognizable version of the character. While the films had to condense the very complex source material into two hours, the serialized nature of Reacher allowed it to flesh out the narrative in more depth. It didn’t hurt that Ritchson’s considerable size and strength was much more in line with the original way the character was written by Child in the novels.

Reacher is set to return for a third season, suggesting that there’s no reason for Cruise to reprise the role again. The initial Jack Reacher film may have been integral in ensuring that the franchise was on audiences’ radar, but it proved to be little more than a rough draft for what Reacher would eventually become. Cruise is certainly the action star of a generation, but Ritchson is definitely the definitive Reacher.

Jack Reacher is currently streaming on Paramount+ in the U.S.

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