‘Jack Reacher’ Author Knows Why His Fans Didn’t Accept Tom Cruise as the Army Veteran
thewrap.com“There was criticism from the book fans, because they had built up a very clear image of what Reacher should look like,” Child said in an interview with Metro.
Cruise played Reacher in a pair of films based on the “Jack Reacher” novels in 2012 and 2016. Though Cruise has more than proven he’s a bonafide action star thanks to the “Mission: Impossible” films, the “Reacher” novels describe the character as “extremely tall, extremely broad, long-armed and long-legged.” Cruise, despite his willingness to do any kind of crazy stunt for his work, is just 5 feet 7 inches tall.
By comparison, Ritchson, who played Aquaman on “Smallville,” is 6 feet 2 inches tall and is much closer to the imposing description of Reacher in the books.
Child said that when casting began for the eight-episode Amazon series, which is a more faithful adaptation of the first “Reacher” novel “Killing Floor,” he and the show’s producers looked for someone larger than Cruise. “It just became a different proposition and I guess the opportunity of thinking alright, we can get a much bigger guy so the book fans are going to be happy, but we’re also focusing on the non-book readers.
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