Harrison Ford Discusses Return Of Jack Ryan – Another Character Revisit?

Harrison Ford’s successful revisiting of Indiana Jones has thrown up all sorts of possibilities in terms of old characters being brought back to life. Ford has already ruled out a return to Star Wars and Han Solo, which isn’t really a problem as the chances of there ever being another live action Star Wars movie are slim to none.

However, there is one character which could possibly be brought back from the dead, that of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. Ford played the character in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger and was also attached to play the role for The Sum Of All Fears but turned it down.

He spoke to The Sun about the possibilities of playing Ryan again:

“The Ryan films, the Tom Clancy films were I thought worth re-exploring again but I wasn’t a huge fan of the book on which the last one was based.”

“I thought it was more out of date than the others so I think they made a cracking good shot at it and I think Ben Affleck is a very very talented.”

“I thought he did great and it was a fine movie but it wasn’t for me. But again, that’s a character that I think you could revisit acknowledging the passage of time and his increasing age.”

“It wasn’t age dependent that character and his experiences were chock-a-block full of recipes for good engaging movies so that’s a character I wouldn’t mind revisiting.”

Ryan was first portrayed by Alec Baldwin in The Hunt for Red October before Ford took over for his next two big-screen outings. Then Affleck took over for the 2002 Sum Of All Fears in which the character was reinvented as younger, less knowledgeable and inexperienced, a move which didn’t go down well with the fans.

Dark Horizons reveals that there has been some movement on a new film for the character, one not based on any of Clancy’s novels, and it seems Ford would cherish the chance to play him one more time.

I certainly think an older version of the character could work, and Ford has already showed himself capable (if a little rusty) of playing the hero at the age of 65. I’d certainly prefer Ford to Affleck any day of the week.