John Krasinksi Discusses His JACK RYAN Series, Says He Will Take on ISIS
John Krasinski is the latest actor to take on the role of Tom Clancy’s iconic character Jack Ryan in a new series being produced for Amazon. Krasinski is an interesting choice for the part, but after seeing him in action in Michael Bay’s 13 Hours, there’s no doubt he’ll be able to pull it off.
During a recent interview with Collider, Krasinski talked about his upcoming series and explained that they will be developing 10 movie-sized budget episodes:
“We’re doing 10 episodes and I think the interesting part about it is exactly what you said, everything’s changed so much; the line between film and TV has blurred so much over the years, I think Jack Ryan is a product of that blurring so much that I think that they’re not even really considering it a TV show, they’re calling it a movie that’s being told in 10 parts; and that’s not just an argument of semantics, it’s actually true. Carlton Cuse’s whole plan is we’re gonna shoot it on a movie budget, we’re gonna have the same stunts as movies, it’s gonna feel like a movie but you’re gonna watch it every week. His whole idea was he just felt that two hours wasn’t enough time to tell a Jack Ryan story because Tom Clancy’s books are so detailed and rich, and the character of Jack Ryan if he has a superpower is his intelligence, so there’s a lot of problem solving and things that take time, and that’s the beauty of the spy genre. That’s what I found was the best pitch to me is it’s really just what’s the best format to tell this story?”
We learned early on that the story "follows an up-and-coming CIA analyst thrust into a dangerous field assignment for the first time. Ryan (Krasinski) uncovers a pattern in terrorist communication that launches him into the center of a dangerous gambit with a new breed of terrorism that threatens destruction on a global scale."
Now we know who the terrorists that Ryan will be dealing with are. Even though there are several books that can be used to be adapted for the series, the creative team decided to take on real-world modern issues. So they will be creating original stories for the show and the first season will focus on ISIS. The actor says:
“Every year they’re gonna be different. They’re sort of more ripped-from-the-headlines type stuff, so the first year the villain or I don’t know what you want to call it is it’s taking on ISIS for sure.”
As a fan of Clancy's Jack Ryan, I’m excited about this series. It’s got a great and talented team developing it. I’m really curious to see how Krasinski measures up to the other actors who have previously played Ryan in the films — Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, and Chris Pine.