Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (October 21, 2016)

Paramount and Skydance are in negotiations with The Last Samurai team of Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz to rewrite Richard Wenk’s script for Jack Reacher 2, the follow-up to the 2012 Tom Cruise-starrer that made $218.3M worldwide and $80M-plus domestic. Christopher McQuarrie wrote and directed the original, based on the Lee Child novel series. The plan is to have Zwick direct the sequel, and Cruise is already poised to return for a second go-round.

Wenk (The Equalizer) wrote the original draft, which Zwick and Herskovitz will take on next. In addition to working with Cruise on 2003’s Last Samurai, the pair wrote the Jake Gyllenhaal-Anne Hathaway romantic drama Love And Other Drugs. Zwick last directed Pawn Sacrifice, the upcoming pic that stars Tobey Maguire as chess legend Bobby Fischer and Liev Schreiber as his arch-rival Boris Spassky.

The original Jack Reacher cost around $57 million in production costs, grossed $218 million worldwide and did well in ancillaries. All made a sequel attractive, especially with popular source material like Child’s novels, about a former MP who roams the U.S. looking for dangerous and suspicious situations to get himself into.

Paramount and Skydance signaled they were moving ahead with a sequel as early as December 2013, a year after the first one. It will be based on the Child book Never Go Back, which was published in fall 2013. In it, Reacher heads back to his old military base in Virginia to take a woman to dinner who is now the commanding officer. By the time he gets there, she has been arrested, and Reacher finds himself being charged with pummeling one guy and fathering a child with a woman. He can’t remember either transgression but gets to the bottom of it with cunning and sometimes brute force.

McQuarrie will stay on and executive produce the sequel with Cruise and Don Granger.

Cobie Smulders is in early talks to play the female lead in the upcoming JACK REACHER sequel from Paramount. The role’s name is Danika, and Smulders would be a perfect get with her recent action outings in the Marvel universe. Ed Zwick is set to direct a script by Richard Wenk, although Zwick and his partner Marshall Herskovitz recently did a rewrite.

The film, based on Lee Child’s 18^th Jack Reacher novel Never Go Back, tells the story of the titular hero as he returns to his Virginia to visit his old commanding officer, only to find that she has been arrested.

Details are slim as Paramount has made no comment on the negotiations and a rep for Smulders has said, “There’s nothing to talk about,” but some sort of news should be forthcoming as production is slated to start in the fall to meet a release date in late 2016.

UltimateMarvel wrote:I didn't know the first one did so well in the BO for a sequel.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Damn! I had no idea it made that much. We'll probably see a 3rd if it's the same quality as the first because I really liked the first one.

WyldeMan wrote:Cruise doesn't really make movies anymore unless they've part of planned franchises before he signs on. Prior to signing on Reacher and Tomorrow, they were planned franchises but I think Cruise is the only actor in Hollywood who doesn't do multi film contracts but that probably has something to do with in his over three decades of acting I've never heard of him backing out of a film or not honoring a verbal agreement for a sequel, that's pretty much how the entire M:I franchise has been handled. As to your hope that there might be a third film too, last I heard there are more than a dozen Reacher books they could adapt.

Jack Reacher is a delightful throwback to when we got our action-fix without a deluge of CG, and while it didn’t blow up the box office, it managed to do well enough in the long run to get a sequel. Tom Cruise will return as the eponymous drifter, but this time his Last Samurai director Ed Zwick will be at the helm.
Steve was at the recent press day for Zwick’s new film Pawn Sacrifice, and got some updates on Jack Reacher 2. 

Zwick started off by explaining that what makes Jack Reacher unique as a franchise is that the books standalone and that we should expect the same from the movies:

The nice thing about the franchise to me is that it’s almost an anthology. He gets involved in something very different in each of those books with a different cast of character and a different set of circumstances of things that happen to him. I like to think this will satisfy those who really like the character, but they will see him and see this very much as a standalone movie as each of them hopes to be.

For those wondering if Jack Reacher 2 was spurred by the success of Mission: Impossible 5 and Cruise wanting to indulge his other franchise, Zwick assures us that it’s because the first Jack Reacher was able to succeed in the long run and they were already gearing up for production:

The movie performed, but not as well as they hoped, but they found in ancillary markets it performed and just kept on buying it and streaming it and it sort of went through the roof. It had a bit of a long tail. So they were already in the process of—I’d already begun work on this, writing the draft, long before [Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation] came out.

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As for the plot of Jack Reacher 2, we know that the plot will be based on the 18th novel in the series, Never Go Back, which has Reacher returning to Washington D.C. to meet up with an old flame only to discover that she’s been arrested, and he must discover what’s going on. Zwick, who also read other Reacher novels to get a sense of the character, says his movie will stick to Never Go Back, but will also make some departure as well.
However, it will keep the same realistic approach as the first movie. Zwick explains:

It’s going to be very grounded. The emotions are grounded. The action is grounded. Mission: Impossible 5 is an extraordinary accomplishment of a very particular kind, and I think we would be foolish to try and replicate it for a different genre, so this is going to be itself.

He also revealed that while there won’t be a stunt as “grand and operatic as hanging from a plan,” Zwick hinted at “something in this in particular” that should wow audiences.

Finally, he confirmed that they’ll be shooting in New Orleans in October, and they’ll also be shooting on film.

Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions have announced that Tom Cruise's Jack Reacher 2 will arrive in theaters on October 21, 2016.

Production on the yet-to-be titled film, which is set to reunite Cruise with his The Last Samurai director Ed Zwick, is expected to kick off this November, shortly after Cruise finishes shooting the drug cartel thriller Mena with Doug Liman (Edge Of Tomorrow). In addition to Cruise, Cobie Smulders (The Avengers) was also recently reported to be in talks for a lead role.

While initially reluctant to greenlight a sequel, Paramount eventually relented once they saw the original film's strong performance in international markets, where it pulled in over $138 million for a total worldwide gross of $218 million. Cruise was most recently seen in another Paramount production, the critically acclaimed Chris McQuarrie-directed Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, which has grossed over $480 million worldwide to date and is opening in China on September 8, where it is expected to do big business.

Jack Reacher 2 is just the latest addition in to a jam-packed fall 2016 lineup as it opens against Screen Gems' Underworld 5, two weeks after 20th Century Fox's Gambit, one week after Columbia's Inferno, and two weeks before Marvel's Doctor Strange.

Variety is reporting that 16-year-old newcomer Danika Yarosh is being eyed by Paramount and Skydance Pictures to star in Tom Cruise's upcoming Jack Reacher sequel as Reacher's daughter. A deal hasn't officially been closed yet, because, as of this posting, there are still concerns about a potential scheduling conflict between the Ed Zwick-directed sequel and Yarosh's committments to the upcoming NBC revival Heroes Reborn, but Variety's sources have confirmed that she is definitely the frontrunner after strong chemistry reads with Cruise over the past month.

The success of Universal’s “Straight Outta Compton” continues to pay dividends for its breakout cast — Aldis Hodge, who played MC Ren in the film, has landed his next project.

Sources tell Variety that Hodge is in talks to join Tom Cruise in Paramount and Skydance’s “Jack Reacher 2.”

Variety previously reported that “Heroes Reborn” star Danika Yarosh was the choice for one of the female leads along with Cobie Smulders, who is currently in negotiations to join the film.

Ed Zwick is set to direct. Zwick and and Marshall Herskovitz wrote the most recent draft of the script after Richard Wenk penned the original draft.

Paramount grossed $218 million worldwide from 2012’s “Jack Reacher,” directed by Christopher McQuarrie from his own script based on the Lee Child series of novels. The sequel will be based on Child’s “Never Go Back,” in which Reacher travels from South Dakota to the Virginia headquarters of the U.S. Army Military Police Corps and finds that his new commanding officer has been arrested.

Details on Hodge’s role are under wraps at this time.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Awesome! Forgot Smulders was in this.