The JACK RYAN Reboot : Cast, Plot, Release Date and Spin-Off

The new "Jack Ryan" reboot is finally getting some major buzz. Paramount Pictures is producing the new movie with Chris Pine ("Star Trek") in the lead role and Kenneth Branagh ("Thor") directing and starring as the villain. This past week, several announcements were made that sparked the buzz regarding the reboot.

Jack Ryan is a character who appeared in several Tom Clancy novels which eventually got adapted for the big screen. The movies and the actors who played Ryan are : "The Hunt for October Red" - Alec Baldwin, "Patriot Games" and "A Clear and Present Danger" - Harrison Ford, "The Sum of All Fears" - Ben Affleck. Since the last of the Ryan movies, in 2002, no other attempts were made to adapt any other of Clancy's novels, until now.

Despite several setbacks which have been delaying the making of this film since 2009, the production seems to be moving forward and we even have some cast updates: Keira Knightley will star as Ryan's wife Cathy (played by Anne Archer in the Harrison Ford movies) and Kevin Costner has recently joined the cast as William Harper, Ryan's CIA liason.

The plot seems to indicate that the reboot will actually be a prequel, giving us insight into Ryan's early years. The story obviouly has something to do with Ryan fighting agains some global conspiracy or something and director Kenneth Branagh sheds some light on the prequel concept:

"It' an original story that allows us to understand how Jack Ryan develops into a CIA analyst, before joining, and perhaps even joining, the CIA. It’s a very contemporary action thriller set in the here and now."

A release date has been roughly set for the fourth quarter of 2013. It is also said that Paramount is actually planning a Jack Ryan trilogy, but it all depends on how well this first one does. Furthermore, the studio wants Tom Hardy, Pine's partner from "This Means War", to star as the lead in a Jack Ryan spin-off based on another Tom Clancy novel : "Without Remorse". Hardy would star as John Clark, Ryan's fellow CIA operative, in that film. Both Ryan and Clark were recruited and mentored by William Harper, Kevin Costner's character. Obviously, if Hardy accepts and if "Jack Ryan" does well enough at the box-office, it could mean the beginning of a beautiful franchise. Here is the Amazon synopsis for the book "Without Remorse" :

"Avid readers of Clancy’s bestselling techno-thrillers (The Hunt for Red October et al.) know agent John Kelly, code-named Mr. Clark, as Jack Ryan’s “dark side.” Here, in 1970, Vietnam vet Kelly gets involved in a secret operation to rescue 20 American pilots from a North Vietnamese prison camp. Betrayed by someone in Washington, the mission ends in apparent failure. Clancy balances the military movements with a dark narrative of Kelly’s tragic personal life. While mourning the death of his pregnant wife in a traffic accident, Kelly picks up a young hitchhiker named Pam, a prostitute and drug “mule” fleeing her cruel masters. The pair fall in love and set out to bring down the drug lords, but an error on Kelly’s part leads to Pam’s horrible demise at the hands of the vengeful criminals. After his own recovery from a shotgun blast, Kelly begins methodically to murder his way through the drug ring."

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