Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher walking down the street outside in Season 3 of Reacher.Image via Prime
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Giovana Gelhoren
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Giovana Gelhoren is a High-Trending Topics Writer at Collider, where she covers all the most-talked about stars, movies and TV shows. She’s a proud Latina, hailing all the way from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in Journalism and International Studies. She’s known among her friends as an encyclopedia of celebrities and will watch just about every type of media (especially if said friends are around to watch it with her). She's also interviewed many celebrities during her career, some favorites including Anne Hathaway, Halle Berry, Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Brenda Song, Jordin Sparks, and many more.
Sign in to your Collider account Summary Generate a summary of this story follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recapIt's official. After decades as the creator of Jack Reacher's action-packed missions, Lee Child is stepping away from the blockbuster franchise. Through the years, in addition to 30 riveting books, two movies, and one hit TV show on Prime Video, Child has been the backbone of the massive franchise, but he's now getting ready to say goodbye. By doing so, he'll be passing the baton to his younger brother, Andrew Child, and letting him take control of the Reacher series, which, according to Child himself, is his novels' most successful adaptation.
Lee Child Loves How 'Fleshed Out' the 'Reacher' Series Is
Prior to the Reacher series starring Alan Ritchson premiering in 2022, Child's novels were adapted onto the big screen in Jack Reacher in 2012 and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back in 2016 with Tom Cruise. But, according to Child himself, the adaptation didn't exactly translate as best as it could. The story inevitably became "compressed" and missed some key details – ones that were thoroughly fixed in the TV series. On TV, having a long-form narrative that covers an entire season allowed the story to be as detailed and in-depth as possible. "We had the time to show it all," Child told Shortlist in 2022.
By doing so, the narrative matched the detail and nuance of the original novels. "In the books, Reacher is fleshed out, he is a fully rounded character as much as he can be," Child explained. "With light and shade and loud and quiet." On TV, the stories were allowed to do the same because of the space and breathing room a whole season could afford. "My theory is that if you have relentless, non-stop pace that's the same thing as having no pace at all," he continued. "What you need is to show the differences, the quiet parts make the action parts even more effective."
In the series, soft, quieter moments are then juxtaposed with action-packed, nail-biting action. With that right balance of those highs and lows that Child was aiming for, the series strikes gold each time, and has garnered an impressive 96% average score on Rotten Tomatoes through all three seasons. "I think it is addictive for a novelist," Child said about transforming his writing to TV. "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."
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"I would revisit them, absolutely."
Posts 31 By Chris McPherson Mar 3, 2025Lee Child Is Passing 'Reacher' Off to the Best of Hands
Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher grabbing a man's arm, midswing, in Season 3.Image via Prime Video
While Child's departure from the franchise will certainly mark a new era, he will be passing it on to the person who knows Child, and the franchise, the best: his brother. "Andrew was the very first guy that ever read it," he said of his first novel, 1997's Killing Floor. "So it's not like I had to sit down and explain to Andrew who Reacher is as he’s been there since day one." The same goes for the TV series, in which his brother will be an executive producer. "Was it a big wrench to pass it to the TV people? No, not at all," he said. "They've all been reading the books for years, so they own Reacher much the same way that I do."
From the looks of it, Lee Child is not only happy and settled with his decision to step back from the Reacher franchise, but he's beyond proud of everything the franchise has accomplished. In addition to his heart-thumping bestselling novels, he was a part of making his stories translate into TV gold. With Season 4 of Reacher already underway, his legacy will continue to live on.
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Reacher
Like Follow Followed TV-MA Crime Drama Action Thriller Release Date February 3, 2022 Network Prime Video Showrunner Nick Santora Directors Omar Madha, Carol Banker, Julian Holmes, Lin Oeding, M.J. Bassett, Norberto Barba, Stephen Surjik, Thomas Vincent Writers Cait Duffy Franchise(s) Jack ReacherCast
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Alan Ritchson
Jack Reacher
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Maria Sten
Frances Neagley
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