Chris Pine May Be The New Jack Ryan

I suppose we should have seen this coming. Over the last few months we've reported quite a bit on the Tom Clancy Jack Ryan film series — a franchise that has been all but dead since The Sum of All Fears failed to make a big dent in the box office. We know that Paramount has been planning to revive it, however, and thanks to films like The Hunt For Red October and Patriot Games (and their respective portrayals of the character by Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford) there's quite a bit of interest in seeing the character continue. We've also known that Paramount wanted to skew the character younger. That being the case, of course they're turning to the man who had a lot to do with reinventing another Paramount character for a younger generation: Chris 'Captain Kirk' Pine.

Variety reports that Pine is in talks to take on the role, though we don't yet know who might direct, whether the film would happen before or after another Star Trek movie, or even what this new film might be about. We know that Hossein Amini recently submitted his most recent draft, and that it is based on an original story rather than one of Tom Clancy's novels featuring the Ryan character. We don't even know the title of the new script.

Meanwhile, Pine is currently shooting Unstoppable for Tony Scott alongside Denzel Washington, and (as I reported earlier today) may soon star in The Art of Making Money. Unstoppable is Fox, but all these other projects are Paramount, which might be locking Pine up tight. Because there's another one of those Star Trek movies to be made sometime in the next couple years. What was Carriers again? This guy could have a serious career. And, if his Captain Kirk mojo represents actual ability, he might deserve it.