“Reacher” is one of the best current TV shows around. The Prime Video adaptation of Lee Child’s novels follows a literally larger-than-life mountain of a man and full-time hobo who spends his time traveling around the U.S. of A. solving crimes by beating every person he finds with his bare dinner plate-sized hands. Is it Dad TV? Sure. Is it some of the most fun you can have watching TV? Absolutely.
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For three seasons, “Reacher” has managed to mix good, old-fashioned crime thrills with stunning action — equally serious and utterly ridiculous. The recent third season is already a good candidate for the best season of TV of 2025, with a spectacularly well-crafted and well-paced season. Granted, a bit of the success of the show is Alan Ritchson, who plays the titular former military police major Jack Reacher. Ritchson gives the character an effortless charisma that’s both intimidating as it is funny, with the character going from beating the hell out of a bad guy with his Thanksgiving turkey-sized fists to cracking deadpan jokes the next minute.
“Reacher” is a big success for Amazon, with season 4 happening soon, and also a spin-off series about Frances Neagley happening. In an era of endless cinematic universes and corporate synergy that focus on connecting TV and film, it would make sense for Amazon Prime Video to bring the world of “Reacher” to the big screen via their Amazon MGM Studios company.
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When asked by Men’s Journal about a potential “Reacher” film, Ritchson thought it was an interesting idea. “I can’t speak to movies. I enjoy the format that we’ve got so much, and it works so well where we do a book a season,” Ritchson said. “I think eight episodes seem to be the perfect amount of time to break out a book.”
Let’s not ruin a good thing
Granted, the Lee Child novels have already been adapted into feature films, starring notoriously not larger-than-life Tom Cruise. Though they have their fans, it is very clear that adapting a whole book into a 2-hour movie is not the same as giving it an 8-hour season. As Ritchson put it, morphing the pacing of the Prime Video show to fit a single movie “would probably do a disservice to the books.”
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“I don’t know if I’d fight for films,” Ritchson added. “I like being able to weave in what feels like two, three, or four films around ‘Reacher’ throughout the year. I’m happy with the way things are.”
The thought of seeing Alan Ritchson’s Reacher punch dudes left and right on the big screen is quite tempting, we already missed out on the most cinematic moment in the series so far — the fight between Reacher and bigger Reacher, the hulking henchman Paulie who somehow makes Reacher look small. That fight would have been stunning in cinemas, but since that book has already been adapted, there really is no point in moving away from what already works so well on TV. After all, there are 29 books in the “Reacher” series, so it’s not like the show will run out of material any time soon.
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We’ll have to wait a while before season 4 of “Reacher” gets released, but if there is a show that should get the pre-streaming era treatment of a dozen seasons, it’s this one. Movies are cool, but sometimes a TV show should just be a TV show.
