After years of rewriting, jiggling around, scheduling issues and various other problems, it seems Paramount’s planned reboot of the Jack Ryan franchise, starring Chris Pine, is finally moving forward. A shortlist has now been drawn up for the female lead in the movie – Jack’s future wife – so who could be playing it?
Well, while shortlists don’t always lead to the person who’ll finally play the role, at the moment Deadline says that Paramount and director Kenneth Branagh are looking at Keira Knightley, Felicity Jones and Evangeline Lilly for the role. Knightley is considered to be the frontrunner, though the other two are still very much in the mix. Total Recall co-stars Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel were both in the running for the part as well at one point, but that seems to no longer be the case.
Anne Archer played Jack’s wife in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, but the planned film returns Jack to his early day, before he was married, with Ryan as an ex-Marine who takes a job in Moscow and works to take down his boss(probably played by Branagh), who turns out to be a terrorist working to destroy the United States economy. It still isn’t clear when the movie might shoot, although it’s hoped it’ll go into production before the end of the year.