The end is nigh for Jack Ryan, with news breaking last night (May 9) that Prime Video will be calling time on the show after its fourth season airs.
Deadline reports that the show, which stars John Krasinski in the titular role, will wrap at the end of its fourth run. The show's third season, while in the can, does not have a premiere date on Prime Video as yet, while production on the fourth is now underway.
The report states that Krasinski had committed to making four seasons and this is simply the end of that commitment.
Jack Ryan is the creation of late author Tom Clancy and has been the subject of 21 novels with over 100 million copies sold. He has been portrayed previously in movies by Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin, Ben Affleck and Chris Pine before being rebooted for TV by Krasinski and Prime Video in 2018.
Krasinski's Ryan is a former Marine veteran, who now works as a financial analyst for the CIA. Happy to sit behind his desk and run numbers, Ryan constantly finds himself drawn into the firing line.
The show has been a hit for Prime Video and a solid one for critics, with an average rating of 71% on Rotten Tomatoes. In a way, it's a surprise to see the show will be coming to an end, but it seems that it's more down to keeping Krasinski.
The star, who is overseeing the ever-expanding A Quiet Place franchise, is also booked to make IF, a starry romantic-comedy for Paramount, with Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Steve Carrell among its cast. As well as that, it looks like there may well be a role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to come, so his departure from Jack Ryan is likely down to that.
And Prime Video can't be that unhappy with the show as they are eyeing up a spin-off...
A spin-off, you say?
Indeed. Deadline's report suggest that while Krasinski is on the way out, a new character will soon be introduced who is lined up to get his own spin-off.
Ant-Man star Michael Peña was already confirmed to join the show, but in an unnamed role, which the reports now names as Domingo “Ding” Chavez. It goes on to add that now Peña looks set to his get own spin-off after Jack Ryan finishes.
Chavez is a solider who joins the CIA straight from the United States Army and becomes a key member of Rainbow Six, the international counter-terrorist unit and inspiration behind the big-selling video game franchise.
Chavez has appeared in 22 of Clancy's novels and was previously portrayed by Raymond Cruz in the movie adaptation of Clear and Present Danger, which starred Ford as Ryan.
The plan, it seems, is to introduce Peña's at the tail end of Jack Ryan's third season and then make him a key player in the fourth run, which would then allow himself to have his own adventures.
This would tie in nicely to the planned Rainbow Six movie, which is also set to star Michael B. Jordan as John Clark, after he made his debut in Without Remorse in 2021. There's no release date for that as yet, but this indicates that plans to fill out the line-up of the notorious international counter-terrorist unit are coming together.
