BoxOffice® Pro - January 2014

FILM
FRANCHISE
Is it too late for Paramount to revive the
Jack Ryan franchise?
THE SUM OF ALL FILMS
by Daniel Loria
n There is a simple brilliance to the poster for The Hunt for Red October.
Sean Connery’s face, colored in a red hue, stares at you from a pitchblack
background, with the top of a submarine slightly to the left corner
of his mouth. It’s one of those posters that tells you all you need to know:
Sean Connery is in this movie; there is also a submarine in this movie; do
you like Sean Connery? How about Sean Connery on a submarine? I like
to imagine filmgoers in 1990 gladly buying their movie tickets based on
the poster alone. Who cares about plot when there’s a chance to see Sean
Connery on a submarine?
The Hunt for Red October grossed $122 million to become one of the
hottest films of 1990. Of course, it also helped that The Hunt for Red
October was adapted from a best-selling book by Tom Clancy. The author
went on to write a series of novels featuring Jack Ryan, an important
character in Red October, thus opening the potential for a feature-film
franchise. With a hit film already in its hands, Paramount saw an opportunity
to turn Jack Ryan into the American James Bond.
Harrison Ford, the studio’s first choice for Ryan in The Hunt for Red
October, replaced Alec Baldwin in the role for 1992’s Patriot Games. The
second film in the Jack Ryan series grossed $83.3 million domestically.
Ford would continue to portray Ryan two years later in Clear and Present
Danger. The third entry became the most successful in the franchise, with
a $122.1 million take. Harrison Ford’s face dominated the poster of his
two Jack Ryan films, just as Sean Connery’s had in the poster for the first
installment of the franchise. Star power had helped establish Jack Ryan as
a moneymaker for Paramount, but the studio wouldn’t roll out another
Ryan adventure for another eight years.
Ben Affleck became the new Jack Ryan with the 2002 reboot The Sum
of All Fears. Released less than a year after the attacks of 9/11, The Sum
of All Fears became one of the first films to
explore terrorist threats in a new era
of American life. The Sum of All
Fears grossed $118.9 million
domestically, not a poor
result but nowhere near the
blockbuster potential of a franchise coming off three established hits.
Ben Affleck’s career would go into a nosedive soon thereafter, with his
name appearing across glossy tabloid magazines and his next films taking
critical and commercial beatings. The Jack Ryan franchise never really
took after the ’90s, with The Sum of All Fears relegated to the status of a
moderate hit rather than transitioning the franchise into a new decade.
The absence of a new Jack Ryan film since 2002 has made the Tom
Clancy brand more recognizable in the video game industry than in
cinema. Hollywood missed out on a great opportunity in building a
Tom Clancy cinematic universe to go along with the highly successful
Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, and Splinter Cell video games inspired by the
author’s works. Paramount will try its hand at rebooting the Jack Ryan
franchise once again with the upcoming release of Jack Ryan: Shadow
Recruit, but how much of the property’s pre-awareness remains after all
these years?
Universal’s Jason Bourne franchise proved that the spy genre will
welcome an American hero, but even that series stumbled in its latest
box office outing. The Bourne Legacy tried to push the Jason Bourne films
to new territories by retaining all the ingredients of the formula—with
the exception of two crucial factors: neither the franchise’s star nor its
original protagonist was featured. Jeremy Renner replaced Matt Damon
in a spin-off that Universal hoped would continue the box office success
of the original trilogy. Audiences weren’t buying it; Legacy became the
worst performing Bourne film in the series, coming in more than $100
million under its immediate predecessor, The Bourne Ultimatum, in
North America.
Whether anyone under the age of 30 can still recognize Jack Ryan is
another matter altogether. Films titled on anonymous-sounding names
like John Carter and Jack Reacher both flopped at the box office despite
being based on popular literary characters. The title Jack Ryan: Shadow
Recruit at least gives new viewers a vague idea of what the film might be
about. Moreover, Shadow Recruit is the first film in the series not to be
based on a Clancy novel. The new film also raises questions in terms of
star power. Chris Pine has taken over the title role, but his profile is significantly
lower than that of Baldwin, Ford, and Affleck. While Pine has
enjoyed success as the new Captain Kirk in Paramount’s Star Trek reboot,
the actor has never opened a film on his own shoulders.
The iconic poster for The Hunt for Red October is one of the most
recognizable one sheets of the ’90s. Filmgoers looking at the poster for
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit will see an image of Chris Pine crouched down
and holding a gun. Will they see all they need to know, or will they ask
the most troubling question possible: Jack who?
BoxOffice is currently projecting a $26 million four-day opening
for Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and a domestic total in the $70 million
range.
Chris Pine as
Jack Ryan with
Keira Knightley as
Cathy Ryan
THE JACK RYAN SCORECARD
THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER
Alec Baldwin
PATRIOT GAMES
Harrison Ford
CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER
Harrison Ford
THE SUM OF ALL FEARS
Ben Affleck
JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT
Chris Pine
$122,012,815
$83,351,979
$122,187,590
$118,907,992
$70,000,000*
*PROJECTED
34 BoxOffice ® Pro The Business of Movies JANUARY 2014