Jack Ryan Is Headed for Television; Michael Bay, Carlton Cuse Developing Series Based on Tom Clancy’s Character

“Transformers” director Michael Bay and “Lost” producer Carlton Cuse are teaming up and developing a TV show based on Jack Ryan, the hero of the best-selling novels by Tom Clancy.

According to Deadline, interest for the project has been building up and several outlets are interested in bidding for it.  Cuse will be at the center of the development along with fellow “Lost” writer Graham Roland, while Bay’s production outfit, Platinum Dunes, will be producing the series together with Skydance Media and Paramount TV.

The planned TV series will not be a direct adaptation of the novels written by Tom Clancy, but it will feature the character, Jack Ryan, a CIA operative, in a contemporary setting with the “novels as source material.”

In the books, Ryan is a Marine officer who retires from duty due to a helicopter crash. He later worked as a professor in the naval academy, whereby the CIA recruited him. He rose the ranks and became a deputy director first, then a national security adviser, to finally be the President of the United States.
Over the years, films based on the Jack Ryan character has been adapted in the movies where four actors already played the part: Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck and more recently, Chris Pine. These movies ran in theaters between 1990 to 2014 and have collectively become a billion dollar franchise around the world.