The Last Samurai director to cut the Jack Reacher sequel down to size

By Alex McLevy | May 19, 2015 | 7:10pm

Aux Features Film

It’s been a while since we last hopped up on an apple box and saw that Tom Cruise would be making a sequel to Jack Reacher, the movie that proved no amount of apple boxes can make Tom Cruise look hulking. And while the first movie may have been lackluster, there’s nothing about it that couldn’t be improved by throwing samurai swords at everybody on screen. Enter Ed Zwick: Deadline reports the director of The Last Samurai has been hired to direct Jack Reacher 2.

Richard Wenk (The Equalizer) wrote the screenplay, but there’s no word yet on which, if any, of the novels from the Lee Child book series the movie will be based. Apparently the plan is to have Zwick and his writing partner Marshall Herskovitz rewrite Wenk’s script, probably to add some of that witty romantic banter that characterized their hit show thirtysomething. Failing that, they can always go straight to the samurai swords we suggested above.