George Clooney Wants to Play Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan?

[GreenScar]

I'm not a big fan of Clooney, but I welcome another Ryan yarn.

Buried within the depths of Kim Masters' article on The Daily Beast (via Thompson on Hollywood) about George Clooney moving his production company from Warner Brothers to Sony is this little nugget: "Clooney also appears to be looking for his next commercial opportunity now that the Ocean’s franchise seems to be played out. A source says he expressed interest in playing Jack Ryan when and if Paramount attempts to revive the Tom Clancy series." Last December, Paramount announced that Oscar nominated screenwriter Hossein Amini had been hired to write a screenplay for a new Jack Ryan movie. Could it be?

Ben Affleck was the last actor to play Jack Ryan before Harrison Ford. But The Sum of All Fears came out years ago (in 2002) and its time to move on. The Jack Ryan character, created by Tom Clancy first for the novel The Hunt for Red October in 1984, is very similar to James Bond in that it doesn't matter how old or young he is, he can be written into any spy story. Masters' says, "Clooney seems to recognize that at this time in the world and this time in his life (he's pushing 50), it's time for some commercial maintenance." And like Harrison Ford, who was also 50 when he played Jack Ryan, Clooney is interested in the role.

To be honest, I think it would be a good fit. I love Clooney and love seeing him branch out as well. Jumping into a franchise role like this could be exactly what he needs. Beyond that, we don't know anything about the story or how this version of Jack Ryan is going to be written, so it's hard to tell if he'd be a good fit just based on a character name. But I will say if he does get cast as Jack Ryan, I will be looking forward to seeing him star. It could be a very exciting new franchise. Do you think Clooney would be a good Jack Ryan?