REACHER Series Actor Alan Ritchson Shares The Jack Reacher Story He Wants To Adapt Most
Alan Ritchson was awesome in the role of Jack Reacher in the Prime Video series Reacher! That first season was based on the first book of Lee Child’s novel series, which was titled "Killing Floor," and showrunner Nick Santora made sure that the story stayed faithful to the author’s vision of the story.
The second season of the series, which is currently in development, will adapt the 11th novel in the book series, "Bad Luck And Trouble." The series follows Jack Reacher, a veteran military police investigator who has just recently entered civilian life and he finds himself getting involved in some crazy situations that involve him beating the hell out of people.
“Bad Luck and Trouble” begins “when the members of Reacher’s old military unit start turning up dead. Reacher has just one thing on his mind—revenge.”
While I’m excited for Season 2, there’s one story that Ritchson wants to see adapted more than any of the others. That book is “Die Trying,” which is the second book in the series. During an interview with /Film, the actor talked about wanting to tell this story, saying:
"Not every 'Reacher' book would translate well to screen, I think, but there's only a few. The rest of them, I desperately want to make. 'Killing Floor' I loved, and I understood right away why this is done so well. 'Die Trying,' the second book I picked up, was full of so many of the attributes that I think both translate well to film and that I would just have a lot of fun bringing to life. I hope at some point we get to do 'Die Trying.'"
After the events of "Killing Floor," the story for "Die Trying” finds Reacher in Chicago where he stops to help a young woman with her laundry bags when he and the girl are kidnapped and thrown into a van. Here’s the description of that book:
Jack Reacher is an innocent bystander when he witnesses a woman kidnapped off a Chicago street in broad daylight. In the wrong place at the wrong time, he’s kidnapped with her. Chained together, locked in the back of a stifling van, and racing across America to an unknown destination for an unknown purpose, they’re at the mercy of a group of men demanding an impossible ransom. Because this mysterious woman is worth more than Reacher ever suspected. Now he has to save them both—from the inside out—or die trying....
This is definitely a great story and it’s one that I’m sure will get adapted at some point as long as the series continues to be successful.
Ritchson also previously expressed interest in wanting to adapt the 10th book in the series, "The Hard Way." That story finds Reacher helping rescue the wife and stepchild of a private military company director, who were kidnapped. Here’s the description for that story:
Jack Reacher was alone, the way he liked it, soaking up the hot, electric New York City night, watching a man cross the street to a parked Mercedes and drive it away. The car contained one million dollars in ransom money because Edward Lane, the man who paid it, would do anything to get his family back.
Lane runs a highly illegal soldiers-for-hire operation. He will use any tool to find his beautiful wife and child. And Jack Reacher is the best manhunter in the world.
On the trail of vicious kidnappers, Reacher learns the chilling secrets of his employer’s past . . . and of a horrific drama in the heart of a nasty little war. He knows that Edward Lane is hiding something. Something dirty. Something big. But Reacher also knows this: He’s already in way too deep to stop now. And if he has to do it the hard way, he will.
Regardless of what Jack Reacher books they adapt, Ritchson is obviously having a lot of fun playing this character. That first season was so awesome, and I hope the show has a long enough life to tell these Reacher stories and more!