Reacher’s Producer Told Alan Ritchson Not To Reach Out To Tom Cruise
Alan Ritchson fully embodied Jack Reacher while fronting the first season of Prime Video’s “Reacher.” But there are plenty of people behind the scenes who made the series the successful adaptation of Lee Child’s book series that it was.
Producer Don Granger is one of those people. Child has spoken about how Granger, a longtime friend of the author, was the one that sealed the deal when it came to casting Ritchson, by almost immediately telling Child, “he’s the guy.” The producer had previously worked with both Child and Tom Cruise on the first film adaptation of the Jack Reacher novels, 2012’s “Jack Reacher” and the 2016 follow-up, “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.” He’d also worked closely with Cruise since joining the actor and Paula Wagner’s Cruise/Wagner Productions back in 2004, later taking his talents to Skydance Productions where he produced “Mission: Impossible — Fallout” and “Top Gun: Maverick,” among other projects.
And it was Skydance that eventually helped bring Jack Reacher to the small screen in 2020 with Amazon’s wildly successful streaming series — this time sans Cruise. And besides the fact that Cruise is an international mega-star who would be unlikely to reprise a role he already played just for a TV series, there was a very good reason why the actor didn’t come along for Jack Reacher’s streaming debut. To be specific, fans of the books just didn’t seem to think the 5’9” Cruise quite fit the description of Child’s hero as a 6’5″ man mountain with a 50-inch chest and 250-pound frame. Which … fair enough. Still, when Ritchson was cast, he understandably felt an obligation to reach out to the former Jack Reacher star. Alas, Granger was on hand to make sure that didn’t happen.
Reacher’s Producer Told Alan Ritchson Not To Reach Out To Tom Cruise
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