Before John Wick, Keanu Reeves Turned Down What Could Have Been A Major Action Franchise

Something about the names "John" and "Jack" apparently screams unstoppable action hero. John Wick, Jack Ryan, Jack Reacher ... these are some of the biggest action heroes of the last few years. Extend that timeframe a little and you've got John McClane and Jack Bauer. Go even further and you've got John James Rambo, and that's to say nothing of Jason Bourne and James Bond, who feel very much "John" and "Jack"-adjacent.

Paramount and Skydance tried to throw yet another John into the mix with "Without Remorse," a 2021 action thriller that starred Michael B. Jordan as U.S. Navy SEAL John Clark — or John Kelly, as he's known in the film. Born in the pages of military fiction novels by Tom Clancy, Clark shared his origin with Jack Ryan, a character who has been portrayed on screen by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, Chris Pine, and John Krasinski across five films and a streaming series. While Jack Ryan has since become well-established in the public consciousness, Clark hasn't had quite the same success. "Without Remorse," an adaptation of Clancy's 1993 novel of the same name, attempted to give the character a proper introduction by way of an origin story. But audiences didn't respond, and Clark failed to join the pantheon of Johns and Jacks that represent our most beloved action heroes.

It's maybe a good thing, then, that Keanu Reeves turned down the offer to star in "Without Remorse," which had been sitting in development hell for the better part of 30 years prior to its 2021 debut.

Today, Keanu Reeves is arguably best known for playing the pre-eminent action hero of our time: John Wick. Across four movies (five, if you count the box office disappointment that was "Ballerina"), Reeves has established his aggrieved assassin as the archetypal badass for the modern age. Former stunt performers David Leitch and Chad Stahelski, who co-directed the first "John Wick" back in 2013, share a lot of the credit for the character's cultural and commercial success. Having developed some of the most impressive action choreography of all time for that original movie, Stahelski went on to top the setpieces with every subsequent entry in the "John Wick" saga, culminating in 2023's "John Wick: Chapter 4," which was so jam-packed with carnage that it proved action movies can sometimes have too much action.

Still, John Wick's standing as one of the greatest action heroes ever and Reeves' standing as one of the best stars to ever do it have been well and truly cemented. Which raises the question of whether things might have turned out differently had Reeves said yes to "Without Remorse" all the way back in the '90s.

The 2021 film was directed by Stefano Sollima and followed John Clark, who in the film goes by his real name, John Kelly. The Navy SEAL seeks revenge after his pregnant wife is killed by Russian soldiers and sees him team up with fellow SEAL Karen Greer (Jodie Turner-Smith) and CIA agent Robert Ritter (Jamie Bell). But along the way, as is so often the case with these sorts of movies, he uncovers a conspiracy that could drag the United States and Russia into a war, forcing him to go beyond his personal vendetta and try to save the world from disaster.

Even though it sounds like it has all the makings of a good action thriller, "Without Remorse" ended up being a bland Tom Clancy adaptation that was absolutely not worth the multi-decade wait. Producers had spent years trying to adapt the film for the big screen, and Reeves was one of their first choices to play Clark/Kelly. Given how the eventual film turned out, it's probably a good thing he declined, but had he said yes, the movie might not have languished for almost three decades and might well have been a lot better than it turned out.

Back in 1994, Entertainment Weekly published a feature on the Jack Ryan movies. Alec Baldwin had portrayed the Tom Clancy-created character in 1990's "The Hunt for Red October," before Harrison Ford took over for 1992's "Patriot Games." By the time EW caught up with Ford in '94, he was busy shooting the next film in the saga, "Clear and Present Danger" (which turned out to be one of the better Jack Ryan adaptations). As part of the piece, EW delved into the troubled history of these Clancy-based projects, noting how producers had been trying to get a "Without Remorse" adaptation off the ground since the novel debuted in '93.

At the time, the novel was "hot property," according to the outlet, with Clancy selling the rights to Savoy Pictures for a reported $2.5 million. While Willem Dafoe was set to play John Kelly/Clark in "Clear and Present Danger," Paramount was looking for someone else to front the "Without Remorse" adaptation. EW claimed at the time that Keanu Reeves reportedly refused a $7 million offer to lead the film, but noted that production company Savoy Pictures was still hoping start shooting the movie in time for a Christmas 1995 debut.

Obviously, that didn't happen. We had to wait almost 30 years before John Kelly/Clark would make it to the big screen in his own film, and despite the writing talents of "Yellowstone" creator and "Sicario" scribe Taylor Sheridan (alongside Will Staples), as well as a committed performance from Michael B. Jordan, the final product was considered a failure. The film currently has a 45% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and its theatrical release was undermined by the pandemic, meaning "Without Remorse" ultimately went direct to streaming via Amazon's Prime Video service. 

Would it have fared better with Reeves in the lead? Well, probably, if the actor had been offered the part in the 2010s. Using that John Wick cachet to boost the movie's popularity would have surely helped. But by that point, Reeves had already solidified his action bonafides and certainly didn't need a Tom Clancy adaptation. It would have been interesting to see what his involvement in a '90s version of the movie would have been, though, and whether it would have spawned another successful action franchise with a John at the forefront.