Fan-favorite rough-and-tumble investigator Jack Reacher is back, and this time on the small screen. After two successful Jack Reacher films starring Tom Cruise, Amazon Prime Video is set to launch a Reacher series in 2022. Read on for everything we know about the Jack Reacher series, from plot details to casting to release date and more.
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What is the Reacher Prime Video series about?
Based on Lee Child’s bestselling series of crime novels, Reacher follows the titular Jack Reacher, a veteran military police investigator with a knack for finding trouble.
The inaugural season adapts Child’s first Jack Reacher novel, Killing Floor. It sees Reacher newly adjusting to civilian life as he wanders the country, taking on odd jobs as a homeless drifter.
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Things get complicated when he arrives in the small town of Margrave, Georgia, where locals place him at the scene of the town’s first homicide in two decades. As he works to prove his innocence, Reacher realizes he’s caught in the middle of a conspiracy that’s far more than a simple case of mistaken identity.
Unfortunately for the true killers, Jack Reacher is exactly the kind of person you don’t want to set up as your fall guy. His military know-how, massive build, and willingness to use his fists will make them regret ever crossing him.
When and where can I watch Reacher?
Reacher will premiere exclusively on Amazon Prime Video on February 4, 2022. The series will be available globally, in over 240 countries and territories, for Amazon Prime Video subscribers.
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All eight episodes of the first season will drop at once on February 4. Amazon has not yet indicated whether the series will be renewed for a second season, but with nearly 30 Jack Reacher novels to draw from, there’s plenty of source material to keep the Reacher series alive for several seasons if the first is a hit.
Who’s involved?
The other cast members are listed below, along with the characters they’ll be playing:
- Malcolm Goodwin as Oscar Finlay
- Willa Fitzgerald as Roscoe Conklin
- Chris Webster as KJ
- Hugh Thompson as Baker
- Maria Sten as Frances Neagley
- Harvey Guillén as Jasper
- Kristin Kreuk as Charlie
- Currie Graham as Kliner Sr.
- Marc Bendavid as Hubble
- Willie C. Carpenter as Mosley
- Maxwell Jenkins as Young Reacher
- Bruce McGill as Mayor Teale
Season One of Reacher is developed and written for television by Nick Santora, who also executive produces and serves as showrunner for the series as part of an overall deal with Skydance Television.
Executive producing with Santora are Lee Child, Don Granger, Scott Sullivan, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, and Bill Bost.
Is this related to the Tom Cruise movies?
If you’re hoping for a continuation of the Jack Reacher films starring Tom Cruise, this isn’t the place to find it. While 2012’s Jack Reacher and 2016’s Jack Reacher: Never Go Back could potentially continue with Tom Cruise reprising the title role, the Reacher series is effectively a reboot, adapting the Lee Child novels anew.
By recasting the main role, it looks like this version will be a bit closer to the source material, at least in the characterization of Jack Reacher himself.
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Cruise plays the character more or less as he appears in the novels, but he’s certainly miscast on a purely physical level. Child’s Jack Reacher stands at 6’5. In A Wanted Man, Child describes him as having hands the size of dinner plates.
Tom Cruise was always an odd choice for the 6’5 character from Lee Child’s novels.
That description does not exactly align with Cruise. While well-known for physical feats and doing his own stunts, the Mission: Impossible actor is famously quite short. He stands at 5’7, which is actually fairly close to average height for an American man, but it’s still a far cry from Jack Reacher’s massive build.
In that sense Alan Ritchson is a bit better suited to the part, or at least the trailer makes him look closer to the source character.
What to expect from the new Jack Reacher TV series?
We get a few hints of what to expect from the Reacher series trailer. That includes the following details:
- A quickly rising body count: seven dead bodies have turned up since Reacher showed up in Margrave, according to the trailer. More could add up before the finale.
- A romance between Jack Reacher and police officer Roscoe Conklin, who he’s seen on a date with and kissing in a shower in the trailer.
- A focus on Reacher’s physicality, including feats of strength like using his biceps to open a beer bottle.
- Collaboration between Reacher and local law enforcement. There’s a clear sense that Reacher won’t play nice or take orders though.
There are still plenty of open questions. Whose death are we dealing with? How many people are behind this conspiracy and why? And why on earth would they try to pin it on the hulking Jack Reacher?
That’s what we know about the upcoming Jack Reacher series. You can check it out in February on Amazon Prime Video.
