Update! : Confirmed - Phil Noyce and Harrison Ford aren't returning to the Jack Ryan series. What we have heard is ... Ryan Gosling might be taking on the role of young Ryan. Interesting. Reboot number 2.
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Here's the original story from earlier today.......
Remember this story from November, 2006?
Though he’s no longer involved in the series (though he wanted to do "Sum of All Fears", the studio had other ideas), Australian filmmaker Phillip Noyce, who directed Jack Ryan pics “Patriot Games” and “Clear and Present Danger”, tells Moviehole that he’s heard that the wheels are in motion to put C.I.A agent Ryan back on the big screen. But no, he won’t be involved – and from the sounds of it, neither will the man who invented the popular literary character.
According to Noyce, Paramount is looking to relaunch the Jack Ryan film series – a series that began with 1990’s “The Hunt for Red October” - only this time; the film won’t be based on one of Tom Clancy’s books.
You see, the studio has the right to make a film based on the character – but not John Clark, a character that appears in his own set of Clancy novels – without the permission of author, and so they’re going to come up with their own story for a new Ryan movie.
And here we are today…
Is that Tom Clancy sharpening up his bullets we hear?
Harrison Ford, next seen sloshing around in Indiana Jones’s old boots, might be returning to another of his popular franchise characters – and it’s safe to say it ain’t that Hollywood cop chap from “Hollywood Homicide”. Nope, word from the ‘G’Day L.A’ event in Los Angeles is that Ford might be re-inheriting – from Ben Affleck - the desk of Jack Ryan.
According to one of the Moviehole troops who attended the awards, Noyce is rumoured to be working on “By Any Means Necessary” – described as a direct follow-up to 2004’s “Clear and Present Danger”. That would then indicate that Harrison Ford was back in... right?
Moviehole contributor ‘Ramius’ messaged over the details yesterday.
‘’What’s interesting about this is that “By Any Means Necessary” isn’t the title of a Clancy book. So this will be the first unofficial Jack Ryan film – if you want to look at it that way. Definitely happening. Sounds like Ford is back in”.
A year or so ago Noyce told Moviehole that Paramount were working on their “own” Jack Ryan movie – one without the involvement of Clancy. What he didn’t tell us is that he’d [Noyce] be involved. Granted, he mightn’t have been involved at that point. And neither might’ve Ford. Still, from the sounds of it Paramount have been developing this new Ryan film for a couple of years now – and probably only needed to revisit the box-office figures for both “Patriot Games” and “Clear and Present Danger” to come to the conclusion that they’d be better served bringing back Ford/Noyce than Affleck/Robinson (the “Sum of All Fears” team).
Originally, Noyce was set to direct Ford as Ryan in “The Sum of All Fears”, a few years back, but Ford dropped out of the project claiming the script was as stinky as an unrefrigerated avocado. That’s when the studio decided to ‘reboot’ the Ryan series and cast Ben Affleck as a ‘younger’ version of the character. They planned to follow up that film, “The Sum of All Fears”, with “Red Rabbit” – which Tom Clancy wrote with the new film series in mind – but that was before shares in ‘Affleck’ dropped considerably, and the final figures for “Sum” had come in.
Be interesting to know whether Ford has actually signed yet or Noyce simply wants him to. Again, no confirmation on either though.
As Ramius points out in his email to me “The news that Ford could be back as Ryan will no doubt get a mixed response from the readers” .
Paramount snapped up a script by Daniel Pyne in 2005 titled "By Any Mean's Necessary" - which was about a cop who turns to a jailed mobster for insider information in order to stop a terrorist attack - which Antoine Fuqua ("King Arthur") was attached to direct. I wonder if this is the same script - - reworked as a Ryan movie?
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