‘Jack Reacher’ Author Admits Tom Cruise Is Just Too Short For The Character

Tom Cruise is many things: Academy Award nominee, action film legend, and the very public face of Scientology. One thing he is not is two metres tall, and that seems to have precluded him from appearing in the upcoming Jack Reacher reboot.

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Lee Child, the novelist who first envisioned the burly ex-military policeman, has admitted Cruise was good as Jack Reacher in a 2011 film and its 2016 sequel, but simply didn’t have the physicality fans of his series came to expect.

“I really enjoyed working with Cruise. He’s a really, really nice guy. We had a lot of fun,” Child told BBC Radio, but he admitted “ultimately the readers are right.

“The size of Reacher is really, really important and it’s a big component of who he is.”

Lee doubled-down on the fact his character is meant to reduce grown adults to quivering messes just by existing near them; Cruise definitely brought the smackdown in the films, but was never the absolute unit described on the page.

“There won’t be any more movies with Tom Cruise,” Child said.

“Instead we’re going to take it to Netflix or something like that. Long form streaming television, with a completely new actor.”

He also said he’d be open to hearing fan suggestions about who should helm the character in the future.

Already, punters have piped up with actors they’d like to see take the role, and at least one media figure has suggested the part go to… the rapper Too $short. 

It’s hardly the most pressing example of an actor not necessarily representing the character as accurately as possible, but damn, when even the author of the text drops that kind of heat…

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