Reacher's Showrunner Reveals The Biggest Challenge In The Writers Room
Amazon finally got Jack Reacher right — at least, in the eyes of die-hard fans who were adamant that after two movies, Tom Cruise shouldn't be cast in the TV show. Instead, we got the very large Alan Ritchson, who starred in season one of Prime Video's "Reacher" and was praised for portraying a book-accurate version of the former military policeman. So well-received was that first season that Amazon hastily renewed the show for a second, cementing Ritchson's return before most viewers could even binge the first run of episodes.
"Reacher" season 2 is now almost upon us, and you can expect much more of the dogged adherence to author Lee Child's original vision for his hulking protagonist. Child, who is an executive producer on "Reacher," wrote the original books with a very clear idea of who his central character was: morally incorruptible, better at fighting than everyone else, huge, and, as Child put it in a 2011 interview, "He just travels from place to place pursuing his own interests, which are largely introspective, and keeping himself to himself." That is, unless he encounters some sort of injustice or corruption — which he frequently does.
Across 27 novels (28 come October) and several short stories, Reacher has emerged victorious against all manner of foes, most of whom he happens across on his travels around the US. When adapting those travels for "Reacher," showrunner Nick Santora and his writers adhered closely to Child's vision, with Santora saying, "Lee Child is the compass of this television show." And while adapting the brutal fights and narrative beats from the first novel, "Killing Floor," was relatively straightforward, there was one element of Jack Reacher that threatened to upend Santora's committed adherence to Child's books.
The biggest challenge
With Alan Ritchson in the title role, translating Jack Reacher's imposing physical presence to the screen wasn't difficult. And although months of work went into crafting the fight scenes, including one that involved Reacher taking on five guys in a prison fight, the all-important combat was also made easier thanks to the lead actor's experience and some expert choreography. And to think, Amazon was originally hesitant to cast Ritchson. But one crucial element of the Jack Reacher character that didn't necessarily lend itself to a screen adaptation was his famous terseness.
Throughout the novels, readers get to know the title character largely through his internal monologue, as he surveys his surroundings and analyzes situations with calm military calculation. But that lack of spoken dialogue obviously doesn't lend itself to a TV show — something Nick Santora was all too aware of. In a Collider interview, Santora was asked about balancing the character's famously laconic persona with having to create a compelling on-screen protagonist, saying:
"That was the biggest challenge. So much of what goes on in the book is what Reacher is thinking in his head. In the writing process, it was just a matter of figuring out how Reacher could say what he was thinking without getting verbose and what he was feeling without getting too wordy. Nothing is better for a writer than to figure out how to say something just as good, but in fewer words, so I enjoyed the challenge."
In order to solve the problem, Santora and his writers would have to be very selective about what Ritchson's Reacher said and, specifically, to whom he said it.
Solving the problem
In order to get around the issue of having to make Jack Reacher more verbose while risking undermining a central character trait in the process, Nick Santora and his team came up with some rules for dialogue. As the showrunner told TVLine:
"We tried to be very concise with our language and verbiage, and we tried to have Reacher only speak when necessary. You'll see that he only really explains things to people he respects. So, he'll explain stuff to Roscoe (Willa Fitzgerald) or to Finlay (Malcolm Goodwin), but to some jerk that he doesn't like, he'll just go and do what he does without a word."
That turned out to be an inspired approach, allowing Alan Ritchson's version of Lee Child's hero to retain much of his mysterious aura without becoming a one-dimensional, non-verbal bore.
Season 2 of "Reacher" will adapt the 11th novel in Child's series, "Bad Luck And Trouble," and promises to step things up as the eponymous military man goes after whoever is taking out members of his former unit. And with Roscoe and Finlay almost certainly not returning, we'll have to watch to see who Reacher trusts enough to say more than a few words to this time around.