Movies - TV
Reacher's Showrunner Reveals The Biggest Challenge In The Writers Room
By JOE ROBERTS
Showrunner Nick Santora's "Reacher" on Prime Video finally got Jack Reacher right, at least in the eyes of die-hard fans, by casting Alan Ritchson as author Lee Child's iconic character. Adapting the brutal fights and narrative beats from the novels was relatively straightforward, but there was one element of the book version that wasn't easy to adapt for the screen.
In the novels, Reacher is famous for his terseness, and readers get to know him largely through his internal monologue. During an interview, Santora revealed that he had to balance Reacher's laconic persona with creating 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."
To solve the problem, Santora and his writers decided to be very selective about what Ritchson's Reacher said and to whom he said it. Santora explained, "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."