Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse has a screenwriter and possible director. Christopher McQuarrie is nearing a deal with Paramount Pictures to adapt the 1993 novel into a feature film.  McQuarrie will write.  He’s also eyeing the director’s chair.  McQuarrie is best known for writing The Usual Suspects, … Continue reading →

Paramount Drafts Christopher McQuarrie into Service on Tom Clancy’s ‘Without Remorse’

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Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse has a screenwriter and possible director.

Christopher McQuarrie is nearing a deal with Paramount Pictures to adapt the 1993 novel into a feature film.  McQuarrie will write.  He’s also eyeing the director’s chair.  McQuarrie is best known for writing The Usual Suspects, and subsequently winning the Academy Award.

McQuarrie is burgeoning as a hot ticket director.  Paramount is supposedly smitten with McQuarrie’s adaptation of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher.  That film stars Tom Cruise and is due out in December.

Chronologically the first entry in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan universe, Without Remorse takes place during the Vietnam era in the city of Baltimore and follows the character John Kelly, a Navy SEAL who has his share of unbridled tragedy.

Kelly’s pregnant wife dies in a car accident.  Then his ex-prostitute girlfriend is abducted and killed by members of a drug ring.  At some point John Kelly becomes John Clark, and he goes on a rampage against his girlfriend’s killers.

Shawn Ryan, creator of The Shield, originally wrote a draft of the script.  And audiences have already gotten a taste of the John Clark character when Willem Dafoe played a slightly wonky version of him in Clear and Present Danger.

I assume McQuarrie will move the story away from Vietnam and into a modern day setting.  Paramount currently has Kenneth Branagh helming the Jack Ryan reboot with Chris Pine as the titular character.  Looks like there might be some character crossover.

Source: Deadline Hollywood

  • rsixsmith

    i love his james t. kirk, but i don’t see chris pine as jack ryan. too bright eyed. i think of jack ryan as more rugged, but then harrison ford- especially young harrison ford- is such a hard act to follow in this kind of role. ben affleck tried, bless his heart, but he couldn’t fill the shoes. you know how with SO MANY of the actors, male and female, in hollywoody you can easily compare them to other actors and interchange lots of them? there are some, though, that are so singular, and i feel that harrison ford is one of them. he doesn’t remind me of anyone else, in looks or acting style. anyway, i’m not sure where i was going with all of that. i also really liked willem dafoe’s john clark, and incidentally i’d put him in that category of singularity too. bottom line, i’m sure both movies will be fine, hopefully better, and i’ll probably at least see without remorse in the theater.