Summary
- Reacher season 3 has been confirmed and Alan Ritchson’s favorite novel, “Die Trying,” would be a perfect choice to adapt next.
- Ritchson’s performance as Reacher in the TV show is favored over Tom Cruise’s portrayal in the movies.
- Adapting “Die Trying” for season 3 would break the trend of the title character having a personal link to every case.
Reacher season 3 has been confirmed, and Alan Ritchson’s favorite novel in the series would be perfect to adapt next. While the second movie proved disappointing, Tom Cruise’s first Jack Reacher movie has aged well. It’s a taut thriller directed by Cruise’s regular collaborator Christopher McQuarrie (Mission: Impossible – Fallout) with a great cast and some well-staged action. That said, fans could never fully accept Cruise as the man mountain featured in Lee Childs’ Reacher novels, and it already feels like Alan Ritchson has replaced Cruise as Reacher in the public consciousness.
In terms of appearance, Ritchson feels like he stepped right off the pages of Childs’ source material, and he also nailed Reacher’s terse persona and dry humor. The actor also read every book in the series before filming Reacher season 1, which adapted Child’s first book Killing Floor. Given how successful the first year was and that anticipation for season 2 is sky-high, it’s little wonder Amazon has already greenlit a third season. While the show is unlikely to cover One Shot or Never Go Back – which were adapted for the Cruise films – the showrunners still have over 20 books to pick from.
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Reacher Season 3 Should Adapt The “Amazing” Die Trying
Ritchson has praised the second Reacher adventure
While being interviewed by Empire for the first season, Ritchson was asked if there were any Jack Reacher books he’d love to see adapted. The actor cited the first seven entries as among his favorites, but Ritchson praised Child’s novel Die Trying in particular as “an amazing book.” This was the second outing in the series and opens with Reacher being kidnapped in Chicago alongside FBI agent Holly Johnson for reasons unknown. Reacher soon discovers Holly is the goddaughter of the President, and that they’re being used as pawns by a military group who want to secede from the U.S.
Reacher is streaming exclusively on Prime.
Since the book is so early in Child’s series, Reacher isn’t quite the invincible tank he is depicted as in later stories. In contrast to Killing Floor or Bad Luck and Trouble (the novel Reacher season 2 is adapting) where the character is quite proactive, Reacher spends most of Die Trying in captivity and working with Holly to escape. The story still has plenty of twists and action, but Die Trying would be a great choice for Reacher season 3 due to the unusual setup and having a slightly smaller scale.
Adapting Die Trying For Reacher Season 3 Would Break This Series Trend
Reacher can’t have a personal link to EVERY case
As with any long-running property, some novels in the Reacher saga are better than others. In most of the books, the titular wanderer is reluctantly dropped into a messy situation and resolves it with a blend of brains and brawn. In books like Die Trying Reacher has no direct ties to what’s happening; he gets involved because he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, Amazon’s first two series have selected books where he already has a potential stake in the case.
In Reacher season 1, he learns his brother Joe was murdered in the small town of Margrave, and he’s determined to find the killers. Bad Luck and Trouble sees Jack reunite with members of his old Army unit when others turn up dead. Revenge stories are a good way to draw viewers in, but Reacher season 3 needs to break this pattern next time out.
Child established a character who was free to roam America and get caught up in any number of adventures. If the show is to continue, it needs to vary the formula, and getting rid of the revenge element for season 3 would be a wise step. Reacher is a character with few personal connections or attachments, so it would be stretching credulity if he had to avenge another murdered loved one next time.
Die Trying Would Completely Mess Up Reacher’s Adaptation Order
Adapting Die Trying would present a unique timeline issue
In the aforementioned Empire chat, Ritchson stated he didn’t know if the Amazon series would adapt the books in order. It was soon proved this wouldn’t be the case, with Bad Luck and Trouble being the eleventh novel. This freed up the showrunners to pick whichever book they wanted, but if Amazon selected Ritchson’s favorite Die Trying, they’d be looping back to the second novel after previously jumping ahead ten books.
Maybe jumping back and forth between early Reacher stories and later ones isn’t the worst approach to take, however. Die Trying is a pulpy blast of a tale and one that’s very different from Killing Floor or Bad Luck and Trouble. The actor also suggested book 10 The Hard Way would make for a great season too, but since that story is set in New York and season 2 already takes place there, Die Trying feels like a more compelling choice.
Source: Empire