'Jack Ryan' joins pantheon of boringly-named movies

What with all the Bourne movies flying around and parkouring down rails on their motorcycles, you might not have noticed that it’s been 10 years since a Tom Clancy novel made it to the big screen. At some point, Paramount apparently decided that Clancy didn’t write enough books, and bought an original script from Adam Cozad called Moscow, based on the Clancy character Jack Ryan. Then they paid David Koepp seven figures to rewrite it. They hired Chris Pine to star alongside Kevin Costner, and Kenneth Branagh to direct and play the villain, and somewhere along the line they renamed it “Jack Ryan” and set it for a Christmas 2013 release.

After various starts and stops, bad luck and good fortune, the release date for Jack Ryan now is Christmas Day of 2013. It goes up against Universal’s martial arts movie 41 Ronin with Keanu Reeves as well as Fox’s comedy remake of The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty directed by and starring Ben Stiller. Jack Ryan resurrects the popular Tom Clancy character of CIA analyst Jack Ryan last seen on film in 2002 and now played by Chris Pine in the role already made famous by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and Ben Affleck.  This contemporized original prequel story picks up Ryan before he joined the CIA. [Deadline]

Jack Ryan now joins Bucky Larson, Jack Reacher, John Carter, Ruby Sparks, Charlie Bartlett, Alex Cross, and others in a long line of films un-intriguingly named after characters no one has heard of or gives a sh*t about yet, that already have, or probably will bomb. In case you’re keeping track:

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan titles: The Hunt for Red October, The Sum of All Fears, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger.

Paramount’s Jack Ryan title: Jack Ryan.

Which one sounds f*cking boring to you?

 

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