Jack Ryan (film series)
The Jack Ryan film series is an American series of thriller films, based on the fictional character of Jack Ryan, who originally appeared in a series of books by Tom Clancy. In the series of five films, four actors have portrayed Ryan.
Despite inconsistency with its lead actors and crew members, the series has been distributed solely by Paramount Pictures since its inception. Mace Neufeld has produced every film in the series, with producing partner Robert Rehme co-producing Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger and Lorenzo di Bonaventura co-producing Shadow Recruit. With a combined unadjusted worldwide gross of $788.4 million to date,[1] the films constitute the 57th highest-grossing film series.[2] The films have been nominated for four Academy Awards, winning one for Sound Effects (now Sound Editing) in The Hunt for Red October (at the 63rd Awards).[3]
The continuity of the films differ from the novels. In the novels, Patriot Games occurs before The Hunt for Red October, though the order was reversed in the film versions. Additionally, The Sum of All Fears is not part of the Baldwin/Ford series, but rather an intended reboot of the franchise, and therefore departs significantly from the chronology of the novels. It takes place in 2002, whereas the novel takes place in 1991/1992. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is a second reboot of the franchise that departs from all previous films.
Films
| Film | Ryan Actor | Director | Writer(s) | Producer(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Hunt for Red October (1990) | Alec Baldwin | John McTiernan | Larry Ferguson Donald E. Stewart |
Mace Neufeld |
| Patriot Games (1992) | Harrison Ford | Phillip Noyce | W. Peter Iliff Donald E. Stewart |
Mace Neufeld Robert G. Rehme |
| Clear and Present Danger (1994) | Donald E. Stewart Steven Zaillian John Milius | |||
| The Sum of All Fears (2002) | Ben Affleck | Phil Alden Robinson | Paul Attanasio Daniel Pyne |
Mace Neufeld |
| Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014) | Chris Pine | Kenneth Branagh | Adam Cozad David Koepp |
Lorenzo di Bonaventura Mace Neufeld |
Overview
The Hunt for Red October (1990) is set in 1984. Central Intelligence Agency analyst Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin) must track down the Red October, a technologically superior Soviet nuclear sub heading to America's east coast under the command of Captain Marko Ramius (Sean Connery), and prove to the American government his theory that the sub's mission is to defect rather than attack the American coast. After being boarded by Ryan, the American submarine USS Dallas assists Red October in escaping from attacks by the Soviet submarine V.K. Konovalov and safely brings it to the United States.
Patriot Games (1992) begins with former CIA analyst, Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford), now a professor at the U.S. Naval Academy, badly wounded after intervening and even killing an assailant in an attack of the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in London. The remaining attackers escape, including Sean Miller (Sean Bean), the brother of the killed assailant who vows to hunt down and kill Ryan. After two simultaneous attacks aimed towards Ryan and his family, Ryan rejoins the CIA to learn more about Miller and his group of Irish revolutionaries.
Clear and Present Danger (1994) has Jack Ryan appointed as acting CIA Deputy Director of Intelligence, as Vice Admiral James Greer (James Earl Jones) becomes sick with cancer. When a family close to the President is murdered in their sleep by what appears to be drug cartels, Ryan is called in to investigate. Unknown to him, the CIA sends in a secret field operative to lead an illegal paramilitary force against the cartels in Colombia with the help of John Clark (Willem Dafoe). Risking both his life and his career, Ryan exposes the truth behind the entire situation.
The Sum of All Fears (2002) is set in 2002 and departs from the chronology of the previous three films. After the President of the Russian Federation dies and is replaced by a man with a mysterious past, the United States goes on alert to rising Cold War fears. Through the paranoia, CIA director William Cabot (Morgan Freeman) recruits young analyst Jack Ryan (Ben Affleck) to supply insight and advice on the situation. Ryan soon discovers that a neo-nazism terrorist group is planning to provoke a war between the U.S. and Russia, by detonating a nuclear bomb at a football game in Baltimore.
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014) is set in 2013 in a fictional universe apart from the previous four films. After the events of September 11 attacks, Jack Ryan (Chris Pine), studying at the London School of Economics, becomes a Marine second lieutenant in Afghanistan, where he is critically injured when his helicopter is shot down. Ten years later, Ryan is working on Wall Street with a cover job as a compliance officer at a stock brokerage, and as a covert CIA analyst, where he discovers that certain accounts are inaccessible to him as auditor, which leads him to Viktor Cherevin (Kenneth Branagh). With Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner), Jack works to stop a plot to collapse the dollar.
Development
After viewing galley proofs of Tom Clancy's 1984 novel The Hunt for Red October, producer Mace Neufeld optioned the rights to the novel in 1985. Despite the book becoming a best seller, no Hollywood studio was interested in developing into a film, because of the factors of content and cost. "This book doesn't condense well into two or three pages", said Neufeld. "I read some of the reports from the other studios and the story was too complicated to understand. Fortunately, I was able to get a major executive at Paramount to read the book and he said: 'I think this can make a great movie. Let's see if we can develop it'".[4]
Cast and crew
Cast
Crew and other
Reception
Box office
| Film | U.S. release date | Box office revenue | Budget | Reference | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Foreign | Worldwide | ||||
| The Hunt for Red October | March 2, 1990 | $122,012,643 | $78,500,000 | $200,512,643 | $30,000,000 | [6] |
| Patriot Games | June 5, 1992 | $83,351,587 | $94,700,000 | $178,051,587 | $45,000,000 | [7] |
| Clear and Present Danger | August 4, 1994 | $122,187,717 | $93,700,000 | $215,887,717 | $62,000,000 | [8] |
| The Sum of All Fears | May 31, 2002 | $118,907,036 | $75,014,336 | $193,921,372 | $68,000,000 | [9] |
| Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit | January 17, 2014 | $50,577,412 | $83,700,000 | $134,277,412 | $60,000,000 | [10] |
| Total | $497,036,395 | $425,614,336 | $922,650,731 | $265,000,000 | ||
Critical reception
| Film | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic |
|---|---|---|
| The Hunt for Red October | 86% (66 reviews)[11] | 58/100 (17 reviews)[12] |
| Patriot Games | 75% (32 reviews)[13] | |
| Clear and Present Danger | 81% (36 reviews)[14] | 74/100 (14 reviews)[15] |
| The Sum of All Fears | 59% (168 reviews)[16] | 45/100 (35 reviews)[17] |
| Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit | 57% (143 reviews)[18] | 57/100 (36 reviews)[19] |
| Average ratings | 73% | 59/100 |
Merchandising
Video games
The film series has spawned three video games for various systems. Two side scroller games were produced in 1990 to coincide with the release of The Hunt for Red October, one for computer systems was released by Grandslam Interactive Ltd. while another was released for Nintendo consoles by Hi-Tech Expressions, Inc.[20] In 2002, the video game The Sum of All Fears was released by Ubisoft for the PC, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube.[21]
Home media
On February 7, 2003, Paramount announced a box set entitled The Jack Ryan Special Edition DVD Collection, includes new editions of The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger as well as the special edition of The Sum of All Fears.[22] Both the set and the individual editions of each film were released on May 6, 2003.[23] While the four films were originally intended to be released in a Blu-ray collection entitled The Jack Ryan Collection, the films were later broken up into separate releases for the high definition format on July 29, 2008.[24] On December 3, 2013, The Jack Ryan Collection was finally issued on Blu-ray.
References
- ↑ "Jack Ryan Movies". Box Office Mojo. IMDB. Retrieved September 3, 2013.
- ↑ "Movie Franchises". The Numbers. Nash Information Services. Retrieved September 3, 2013.
- ↑ "The 63rd Academy Awards (1991) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved September 3, 2013.
- ↑ Thomas, Bob (March 2, 1990). "High-Tech Novel Took Five Years to Reach Screen". Associated Press. Retrieved September 6, 2013.
- ↑ "JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT - British Board of Film Classification".
- ↑ "The Hunt For Red October (1990)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2012-06-02.
- ↑ "Patriot Games (1992)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2012-06-02.
- ↑ "Clear and Present Danger(1994)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2012-06-02.
- ↑ "The Sum of All Fears (2002)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2012-06-02.
- ↑ "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2014-01-02.
- ↑ "The Hunt for Red October". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2012-06-02.
- ↑ "The Hunt for Red October (1990): Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2012-06-02.
- ↑ "Patriot Games". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2012-06-02.
- ↑ "Clear and Present Danger". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2012-06-02.
- ↑ "Clear and Present Danger (1994): Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2012-06-02.
- ↑ "The Sum of All Fears". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2012-06-02.
- ↑ "The Sum of All Fears (2002): Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2012-06-02.
- ↑ "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2014-01-15.
- ↑ "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014): Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2014-01-15.
- ↑ "The Hunt for Red October for Amiga (1990)". MobyGames. GameFly. Retrieved September 3, 2013.
- ↑ "The Sum of All Fears for GameCube (2003)". MobyGames. GameFly. Retrieved September 3, 2013.
- ↑ Conrad, Jeremy (February 7, 2003). "The Jack Ryan Special Edition Collection". IGN. IGN Entertainment, Inc. Retrieved September 3, 2013.
- ↑ Bernardin, Marc (May 9, 2003). "The Jack Ryan Special Edition DVD Collection (2003)". Entertainment Weekly. CNN. Retrieved September 3, 2013.
- ↑ Dreuth, Josh (May 28, 2008). "Jack Ryan Gets Split for Blu-ray". Blu-ray.com. Retrieved September 3, 2013.