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Lost's Jack Bender May Direct Paramount's Jack Ryan Reboot

by Alex Billington
August 2, 2010
Source: Vulture

Wait - Jack who? Jack Bender, he was an executive producer on ABC's Lost and directed some 36 episodes of that show as well as episodes of "Alias", "The Sopranos" and just about everything in-between. Vulture is reporting that Bender is "a cat's breath away from landing the job as the director of Moscow," which I think is the current working title of the new Jack Ryan movie with Chris Pine attached. We've been reporting on the Ryan reboot for a while, but it seemed like Paramount was waiting to get things absolutely perfect with the script before moving forward. So he's not signed yet, but it sounds like Bender is now the top contender.

Moscow will see a fresh-from-the-Marines Jack Ryan go to work as an analyst for a Russian billionaire, but winds up on the run after being implicated in a terrorist plot designed to collapse the US economy. This all takes place (in Tom Clancy's world) before Ryan joined the CIA, which is when we've mainly seen him in his past movies. Paramount is certainly in cahoots with J.J. Abrams, and Vulture is guessing that he helped get his name high up on their list and now things are clicking between Bender and the studio as well. He's been directing since the 1980's, but his last feature film was Child's Play 3, not that that makes things any better.

I'm mostly interested in seeing Chris Pine bring new life to Jack Ryan than I am seeing Jack Bender direct this, but I'll be hoping for the best (as always) because I want this to be a great movie all-around. Ever since The Sum of All Fears, Jack Ryan has been one of those characters that no one wants to touch or bring back (no thanks to Harrison Ford kickin' ass as Ryan) so let's hope Paramount has some big plans for the reboot.

Photo of Jack Bender above (in the chair) borrowed from MadMannequin on Flickr.

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