Reacher Star Alan Ritchson Responds to Constant Comparisons With Tom Cruise

Summary

Alan Ritchson embraces being compared to Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher, considering him a legendary actor.
Reacher‘s success is attributed to its faithful adaptation of Lee Child’s novels and Ritchson’s physical resemblance to Cruise.
Season 3 of Reacher will feature new adventures but Ritchson will not share details ont he story.

For many fans, Alan Ritchson is Jack Reacher. When you are taking on a character that has been previously portrayed by a Hollywood legend like Tom Cruise, that kind of recognition is something to be celebrated. However, Ritchson is just as happy to have his performance compared to that of his predecessor, and says he will, in fact, “never tire” of it.

Ritchson is currently riding high on a hugely successful second season of Prime Video’s Reacher, and in a recent interview with Jonatan Blomberg Interviews, the actor was asked about whether it ever gets tiring having people constantly comparing his version of Reacher to the Tom Cruise version. He said:

“Never. Being compared to the most legendary actor of all time? The last film star? I would never tire of being compared to somebody of his stature. Look, he did his thing, he brought a lot of eyes to this project that wouldn’t be here otherwise, I think. There’s some great IP, the books are great, a lot of people have read them and enjoy the show because of them, but I think a lot of people enjoy the show because he made them aware of it.”

Related: Reacher’s Alan Ritchson Shares Surprising Encounter with Former High School Bully

Reacher Has Soared to New Heights With Alan Ritchson

Prime Video

Tom Cruise played Lee Child’s creation in two movies, released in 2012 and 2016. Both movies were a financial success, but while the first movie gained a reasonably positive set of the reviews, the sequel, Jack Reacher: Never Back Down, didn’t get the same kind of praise. Although a second sequel was still being discussed as late as 2020, director Christopher McQuarrie said at the time that it was unlikely another movie would happen as “the franchise has moved on…we haven’t.”

Early in 2022, all thoughts of another Tom Cruise movie were well and truly buried by the arrival of Amazon Original series Reacher, starring Ritchson in the title role. As well as gaining mostly positive reviews for its first season, the show also became the first Prime Video series to top Nielsen’s weekly streaming rankings, and ended the year as Prime Video’s #1 title across both series and movies.

One of the biggest factors in Reacher’s success, literally, has been the size of its leading man. At 6’ 2” tall, Ritchson is much closer in his physical appearance to that of Cruise, and this is something that was noted by audiences from the start. Additionally, the first two seasons have been pretty much faithful adaptions of the first and eleventh novels, Killing Floor and Bad Luck and Trouble respectively. It is currently not known which novel the third season will take on, but Ritchson teased that it will be another fully self-contained story. He said:

“I can’t say too much about Season 3, but I will say there’s a lot of classic Reacher stories which are just adventures that he gets sucked into in a big way, and we get to enjoy Reacher in a new world. It may not have anything to do with family, with his past, he’s just living that adventure out and that’s kind of the direction that we’ve gone and it seems to really be working.”

Reacher’s first season is currently streaming on Prime Video, along with the first episodes of season two. Season two episodes drop every Friday until January 19, 2024.