News via Empire.

Jack Reacher, like Oblivion and Edge of Tomorrow, didn’t quite do the business expected of its megastar headliner Tom Cruise. A sequel, despite the obvious franchise potential of the multiple Lee Child source novels, wasn’t a foregone conclusion, although rumblings began in May that it was starting to look possible, with Ed Zwick in the director’s chair.

Now, with the success of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation reassuring everyone that Cruise’s mojo is still intact, studio Paramount are pushing ahead, with shooting on Jack Reacher 2 earmarked for November this year, for a release in late 2016.

Paramount are also keen to keep on striking while the Mission: Impossible iron is hot, with THR reporting that the studio want the sixth instalment shooting next summer, for a June or July release in 2017.

Back when Jack Reacher 2 was first mooted, the plan looked to be an adaptation of 2013’s Never Go Back, Child’s eighteenth Reacher novel. That plot would see Reacher heading back to his old military base in Virginia, to be charged with a violent incident and faced with a paternity case, neither of which transgression he remembers. Richard Wenk had been working on the screenplay, but it’s now being re-written by Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz. So the final thrust remains to be seen.

With Cruise and Doug Liman’s drug-smuggling DEA drama Mena almost wrapped but not due to come out until the beginning of 2017, we’re looking at a triple-whammy of Cruiser vehicles released in a single year. Is Paramount making a mistake, putting its faith in ’90s-style star power when, these days, it’s IPs rather than people that dictate box office? Tell us your thoughts on that in the comments section, why don’tcha.

Rejoice, Tom Cruise fans and dads everywhere! Jack Reacher, Cruise’s exceedingly satisfying adaptation of Lee Child’s popular literary hero, is getting a sequel. Deadline reports that Cruise will return for Jack Reacher 2, and in doing so will reteam with The Last Samurai director Ed Zwick and producer Marshall Herskovitz. Zwick and Herskovitz will reportedly rewrite the existing Jack Reacher 2 script by Richard Wenk, and Zwick will ultimately direct the film.

Child’s Reacher, who’s appeared in 19 novels and counting (book 20 comes out in September), is a former military policeman who now wanders the country acting as a freelance do-gooder. In the first Jack Reacher film, based on the ninth book, One Shot, Reacher arrives in Pittsburgh shortly after a man with a sniper rifle murders several innocent people along the North Shore Trail. The prime suspect in the case wants Reacher’s help in clearing his name, and he provides it, teaming with the man’s defense attorney (Gone Girl’s Rosamund Pike) to uncover a deadly conspiracy. The sequel will be based on the series’ eighteenth novel, Never Go Back. Here’s the plot synopsis:

Former military cop Jack Reacher makes it all the way from snowbound South Dakota to his destination in northeastern Virginia, near Washington, D.C.: the headquarters of his old unit, the 110th MP. The old stone building is the closest thing to a home he ever had. Reacher is there to meet — in person — the new commanding officer, Major Susan Turner, so far just a warm, intriguing voice on the phone. But it isn’t Turner behind the CO’s desk. And Reacher is hit with two pieces of shocking news, one with serious criminal consequences, and one too personal even to think about.

Like a good mystery novel, Jack Reacher, which was written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie (who’s now directing Cruise in the new Mission: Impossible) was lean and entertaining. It wasn’t fancy or spectacular, but effective and efficient in a way that would surely have pleased its main character. (You can read my review of the first film here.) The role of Reacher gave Cruise the opportunity to swagger and run really fast, to act like a genius, and to beat up five guys at once. In other words, it was a great combination of star and subject, and given the vast amount of Lee Child stories to draw on, would make an ideal ongoing series. So bring on Jack Reacher 2. I’m just bummed Werner Herzog, who played the villain of the first film, won’t be back for the sequel.

Via: Screen Crush