It’s quite apparent that Amazon believes the key to winning the Streaming Wars with Netflix, Hulu, Disney, Apple, and WarnerMedia is with battle-tested intellectual property. First, it was the “Jack Ryan” series, which debuted last year. Then you have the upcoming $1 billion “Lord of the Rings” prequel series. And next, it appears that Amazon is banking on people’s love affair with the Lee Child creation, “Jack Reacher.”
Variety is reporting that Amazon won a bidding war for the TV rights to the popular “Jack Reacher” series of novels from author Lee Child. And the plan is to bring those novels to life as a new streaming series. Obviously, this will be without the involvement of actor Tom Cruise, who famously portrayed the action badass in two films.
“Jack Reacher” will be spearheaded by “Scorpion” creator Nick Santora, who has signed on to write, produce, and showrun the new action series. The novel series follows the exploits of the title character, a former US Army military police major, who now travels around the country taking work-for-hire jobs that frequently have him doing all sorts of action-y things.
As mentioned, “Jack Reacher” was most recently adapted into two films, which grossed a combined $380 million worldwide. Obviously, the two films were never able to reach “Mission: Impossible” levels of popularity for its star Cruise, so it’s clear why the film franchise is effectively dead and moving to the small screen.
Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote and directed the first film and produced the sequel, is onboard the series as an executive producer. But one has to think this is mainly a title for him, as he was so intimately involved with the films.
No expected release date is known, but you’ll be sure that actors will be lining up to portray the title character.