As Paramount’s reboot of their Jack Ryan franchise inches towards production, the studio is already looking towards a spinoff featuring another character created by thriller novelist Tom Clancy. And they are near to finalizing a deal to bring Usual Suspects screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie onto the project to rewrite the current script they have and possibly direct the end product.
The character is John Clark, who appears in a number of Clancy’s novels as an older mentor-figure to hero Jack Ryan. But Clancy also dug into Clark’s backstory in the book Without Remorse which is what Paramount has been struggling to bring to the screen since they optioned the book.
McQuarrie will be working from a script turned into the studio by Shawn Ryan, though it is not known if he will just be fixing a few things or throwing out Ryan’s draft and starting over. McQuarrie has just recently wrapped up directing the adaption of the Lee Child novel Jack Reacher with Tom Cruise for Paramount.
The character has appeared previously appeared in the Jack Ryan films Clear And Present Danger and The Sum Of All Fears, played by Willem Dafoe and Liev Schreiber respectively.
Given that an older Clark appears in a number of the Clancy novels that “star” Jack Ryan, I wouldn’t be surprised if Paramount was thinking of eventually having the two appear together in the espionage movie version of what Marvel Studios has done with the Avengers. If they are thinking of doing that, they may have to change Without Remorse’s 1969 setting depending on when the upcoming Jack Ryan is set in order to keep intact the age difference between the two characters. It should be interesting to watch this one proceed through development.
Via Deadline.
