The author of Reacher on why the Prime Video adaptation is superior to Tom Cruise's: “No novelist would ever have chosen anything else”
Reacher recognized the advantage that TV series have, thanks to which his work could spread its wings on the screen.
Jack Reacher's adventures have been adapted for the screen not once, but twice – first in films starring Tom Cruise, and second in a TV series starring Alan Ritchson. According to the author of the Reacher novels, the latest adaptation of his work has a certain advantage over the Cruise production, which makes it superior.
During an interview with Shortlist, Lee Child talked about both adaptations of Jack Reacher's adventures and explained that because TV series have more airtime at their disposal, they can develop the characters better and give them space to live, which gives them a significant advantage over movies, at least in the case of adaptations such as Reacher. Child even stated that “no novelist would ever have chosen anything else,” including himself, if streaming had been around for a long time, which means that the films with Cruise wouldn’t have been made.
That was the huge attraction, doing the long-form narrative that season-long TV gives you. In the books, Reacher is fleshed out, he is a fully rounded character as much as he can be. With light and shade and loud and quiet. In the books, that's obvious, but of course for a short-format adaptation that gets compressed and misses a lot, but we had the time to show it all and that was one of the things that I was most excited about and also makes it all the more effective.
The story he wrote isn’t meant to be told at a fast movie pace. Child pointed out how important those quiet moments are, which make the later action even more important, which is why, in his opinion, TV series have a significant advantage over movies, as they can afford to be more relaxed thanks to the time they have at their disposal throughout the season compared to a film.
I think it is addictive for a novelist. I can guarantee that if streaming television had been around before, no novelist would ever have chosen anything else, because this works so much better.
The TV series adaptation certainly provides ample opportunity to shine. And the Prime Video TV show has allowed Reacher to truly spread his wings; after all, we are already waiting for the fourth season of the hit TV series starring Alan Ritchson.
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Author: Edyta Jastrzebska
A graduate of journalism and social communication as well as cultural studies. She started at Gamepressure.com as one of the newspeople in the films department. Currently she oversees the Gamepressure movie&TV newsroom. She excels in the field of film and television, both in reality-based and fantasy themes. Keeps up with industry trends, but in her free time she prefers to watch less known titles. Has a complicated relationship with popular ones, which is why she only gets convinced about many of them when the hype around them subsides. Loves to spend her evenings not only watching movies, series, reading books and playing video games, but also playing text RPGs, which she has been into for several years.
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