Alan Ritchson’s ass-kicking Reacher last appeared over a year ago in Season 3, and the wait for the fourth installment has felt arduous. Although there is still no news as to exactly when Ritchson’s former U.S. Army military police major will return, Ritchson did confirm exclusively to Collider that new episodes will be “out this year,” calling it “by far the best season we’ve had yet.” The latest update from Ritchson arrived via social media last month, as he confirmed that post-production had finished on Season 4, saying it will be “on the airwaves soon.”
Set to adapt Lee Child’s 13th* Reacher* novel, Gone Tomorrow, Reacher Season 4 is sure to be another massive hit for Prime Video, with the franchise name alone enough to beckon millions to their streaming devices. With that in mind, it isn’t a surprise that Ritchson’s take on the iconic role isn’t the only one to currently prove popular. One of action cinema’s greatest stars, Tom Cruise, added his own twist to the series with the 2012 adaptation, Jack Reacher.
The film featured a sparkly, star-studded cast, with Cruise joined by the likes of Rosamund Pike, Werner Herzog, Robert Duvall, Richard Jenkins, and Jai Courtney in one of 2012’s most exciting action flicks. At the box office, the movie proved a hit, scoring a strong $218 million global haul against a relatively modest $60 million budget. In fact, the movie impressed higher-ups enough financially to warrant the production of a 2016 sequel, although this couldn’t live up to its predecessor. At the time of writing, Cruise’s Jack Reacher is one of the ten most-streamed movies on Paramount+ in the U.S.
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
Clearly, Cruise’s work on Jack Reacher caught the eye of the movie’s director, Christopher McQuarrie, as it marked the first of many collaborations between the pair as director and star. However, it wasn’t their first movie collaboration in earnest, as the two had previously worked together on Valkyrie, which McQuarrie wrote and produced. Most recently, the pair delivered the end of a massive era for Cruise with last summer’s blockbuster Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, as Cruise’s Ethan Hunt ventured off into the sunset, safe in the knowledge that no more impossible missions needed tackling.
Tom Cruise’s adaptation of* Jack Reacher* is streaming on Paramount+. Make sure to stay tuned to Collider for all the latest streaming stories.
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