The "Jack Ryan" film universe seems to be expanding just a bit.
We've known for a long time now that Paramount is trying to get a fifth "Jack Ryan" film made, an original screenplay featuring an origins storyline that takes place before the events of the first film to feature the character, The Hunt for Red October, released in 1990. (The later films are Patriot Games, 1992; Clear and Present Danger, 1994; and The Sum of All Fears, 2002. All four of these films were adapted from Tom Clancy novels.) Chris Pine has been attached to play the character for a couple of years now and that still seems to be true.
Last month we learned that Kennth Branagh had signed on to both direct and star in the as yet unnamed fifth film.
What is new is that Kevin Costner is considering a role in the film as Ryan's CIA recruiter. And here's where it gets even more interesting. He would play the same role in a separate film, an adaptation of Tom Clancy's Without Remorse. That book features ex-SEAL John Kelly — he's also known as John Clark, a black ops agent for the CIA — out for revenge after his girlfriend is murdered, keeping one step ahead of Emmett Ryan, Jack's father, who is also after the killer. (Tom Hardy seems to be the lead candidate to play the role of John Kelly/John Clark.)
This all sounds very exciting … if Paramount can pull it all together. But first they need to get the fifth "Jack Ryan" film made, and it does seem like some progress is being made on that front.
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Without Remorse
Tom Clancy
John Terence Kelly, former US Navy Seal, Vietnam veteran, civilian underwater demolition expert and diving instructor is emotionally lost after the death of his pregnant wife in a car accident. Six months afterwards he picks up a hitchhiker with an unsavory past and falls in love with her and she with him. But her past associates catch up with her and punish her for running away from them. She knows too much about their drug smuggling operations which they are about to expand dramatically. Kelly is injured in the kidnapping and, after finding out what they did to her, vows revenge.
In the meantime, the Pentagon has discovered that certain US POWs who have been reported as killed in action are in fact being vigorously interrogated at a secret camp in North Vietnam. Obviously, when the interrogations are complete, they will be disposed of, having already been officially declared KIA. They want those prisoners back, and the only person who knows the area around the camp is Kelly from a previous mission into the area. The government recalls Kelly to service, under the name of Clark, and gives him the mission to rescue the POWs.
John Kelly has to balance his personal mission, hunt down and destroy the drug pushers, with his official mission, rescue the prisoners from the secret North Vietnamese interrogation camp. And stay one step ahead of the police who are taking an interest in his personal form of justice. Failure of either mission could cause the failure of the other as well, besides cost Kelly his life.
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