Characters Jack Ryan, John Clark, Cathy Ryan Production companies Paramount Pictures, Skydance Media, Di Bonaventura Pictures, Mace Neufeld Productions Directors Kenneth Branagh, Phillip Noyce, John McTiernan, Phil Alden Robinson Cast Chris Pine, Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin, Ben Affleck, Kevin Costner | ||
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.
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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, the films constitute the 57th highest-grossing film series. 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).
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.
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 submarine 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 will try to assist the Red October in escaping from attacks by the Soviet submarine V.K. Konovalov so that it may be brought safely into US waters.
Patriot Games (1992) begins with former CIA analyst, Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford), now a professor at the U.S. Naval Academy, who was badly wounded after intervening in an attack on the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in London and killing one of the assailants. The remaining attackers were able to escape, including Sean Miller (Sean Bean), the brother of the man Ryan killed. Miller now vows to hunt down and kill Ryan, no matter how long it takes or what he has to do. Eventually Ryan and his family are attacked in two separate, but simultaneous attempts. Ryan decides to rejoin the CIA so that he is able to learn more about Miller and his group of Irish revolutionaries and protect those he loves.
Clear and Present Danger (1994) has Jack Ryan appointed as acting CIA Deputy Director of Intelligence, as Vice Admiral James Greer (James Earl Jones) has become sick with cancer. When a family close to the President is murdered in their sleep, by what appears to be a drug cartel, 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 and will try to expose the truth.
The Sum of All Fears (2002) departs from the chronology of the previous three films and is set in 2002. After the President of the Russian Federation dies and is replaced by a man with a mysterious past, the United States goes on a Cold War-like state of alert. CIA director William Cabot (Morgan Freeman) recruits young analyst Jack Ryan (Ben Affleck) to supply insight and advice on the situation in Russia and discover whether the paranoia is founded. Ryan soon discovers that a neo-nazi 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 a fictional universe, apart from the previous four films and the year is 2013. After the events of the 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 a covert CIA analyst and is working on Wall Street with a cover job as a compliance officer at a stock brokerage. He quickly 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 purchasing the film rights because of the high cost of trying to condense the book's massive content into a two hour film. "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'".
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. In 2002, the video game The Sum of All Fears was released by Ubisoft for the PC, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube.
Domingo Chavez (as Ding Chavez) and John Clark both appear as a member and the leader of Team Rainbow in the older Rainbow Six games, these characters also appeared in the book.
Home media
On February 7, 2003, Paramount announced a box set entitled The Jack Ryan Special Edition DVD Collection, which 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. Both the set and the individual editions of each film were released on May 6, 2003. 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. On December 3, 2013, The Jack Ryan Collection was finally issued on Blu-ray.