Reacher's Producer Told Alan Ritchson Not To Reach Out To Tom Cruise

Alan Ritchson fully embodied Jack Reacher while fronting the first season of Prime Video's "Reacher." But there are plenty of people behind the scenes who made the series the successful adaptation of Lee Child's book series that it was.

Producer Don Granger is one of those people. Child has spoken about how Granger, a longtime friend of the author, was the one that sealed the deal when it came to casting Ritchson, by almost immediately telling Child, "he's the guy." The producer had previously worked with both Child and Tom Cruise on the first film adaptation of the Jack Reacher novels, 2012's "Jack Reacher" and the 2016 follow-up, "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back." He'd also worked closely with Cruise since joining the actor and Paula Wagner's Cruise/Wagner Productions back in 2004, later taking his talents to Skydance Productions where he produced "Mission: Impossible — Fallout" and "Top Gun: Maverick," among other projects.

And it was Skydance that eventually helped bring Jack Reacher to the small screen in 2020 with Amazon's wildly successful streaming series — this time sans Cruise. And besides the fact that Cruise is an international mega-star who would be unlikely to reprise a role he already played just for a TV series, there was a very good reason why the actor didn't come along for Jack Reacher's streaming debut. To be specific, fans of the books just didn't seem to think the 5'9” Cruise quite fit the description of Child's hero as a 6'5" man mountain with a 50-inch chest and 250-pound frame. Which ... fair enough. Still, when Ritchson was cast, he understandably felt an obligation to reach out to the former Jack Reacher star. Alas, Granger was on hand to make sure that didn't happen.

"Reacher" season 2 is set to debut this December and it will be interesting to see how well the series fares in a post-lockdown market. But you can pretty much guarantee hardcore Jack Reacher fans will be watching either way, having finally been given an on-screen version of the ex-military police officer that's actually familiar to them.

Meanwhile, Tom Cruise is too busy launching himself off cliffs and fighting on top of trains traveling 60 miles per hour in "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning" to care about what's happening with the character he previously played. Still, as Alan Ritchson explained on an episode of The Rich Eisen Show, Cruise had done a lot to raise awareness of the Jack Reacher character among the wider public, which is partly why he wrote him a letter. The actor said:

"I just felt it was the respectful thing to do. You know, 'Dear Tom, Mr. Cruise, I appreciate what you did for the brand.' You know, I think a big part of why "Reacher"'s so successful is because of the eyes that he brought to it. I mean, say what you want about whether he was right for Reacher or not, most people know about Reacher because of Mr. Cruise, you know?"

Unfortunately, Ritchson never got to send his heartfelt missive after Cruise's old pal Don Granger stepped in.

Don Granger was involved with the Jack Reacher movies from the beginning, and came along for the ride when Lee Child took his hero to Amazon. That meant the producer was on hand to help with things like securing a Child cameo for the "Reacher" season finale. It also meant he was there to advise Alan Ritchson against sending his letter to Tom Cruise. As Ritchson explained on his Rich Eisen appearance:

"I said, 'Should I reach out to Tom? Like, out of respect?' I feel like, you know, I wrote him a letter and I was like, 'Should I give this to him? Would it be inappropriate or whatever?' And [Granger] goes, 'You know, I think it's best just to — you know, he wants to move on from this, he gave it his blessing, he's totally fine with what's happening right now, I think we should just leave it.' And so no, I never talked to him about it."

Why Granger thought it best to leave Cruise alone remains unclear, though it's hard to imagine the actor would have appreciated being reminded of how fans think he's too small to play an action hero that's now being portrayed by someone else. By the same token, Ritchson clearly has no interest in emulating what came before, and has thus far steered away from watching any of the "Reacher" movies. Y'know what these guys need? They need Hollywood to do what Hollywood does and engineer some kind of insane and ridiculous crossover event where the two Jack Reachers somehow jump timelines, team up, and fight some tyrannical force together. Maybe Jack Ryan could be there too, for some reason. Someone tell Granger to get out the way and let this thing happen!