Ryan Gosling To Be New Jack Ryan

It’s beginning to look like current “IT” boy Ryan Gosling (sliming down from his brush with “The Lovely Bones” – see Ryan Gosling Drops Out Of Peter Jackson’s Adaptation Of “The Lovely Bonesâ€Â? and Was Ryan Gosling Fired From “The Lovely Bonesâ€Â? For Flab And Arrogance?) is getting set to become the next Jack Ryan (from the popular series of books turned into movies by Tom Clancy).

Gosling would be the fourth Jack Ryan after Alec Baldwin (The Hunt For Red October), Harrison Ford (Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger) and Ben Affleck (The Sum of All Fears).

The road to making Gosling into Jack Ryan is long and strange, and, apparently, no longer involves Tom Clancy. Philip Noyce, the director of ’the 90s Jack Ryan films starring Harrison Ford, “Patriot Games” and “Clear and Present Danger” was once attached to direct a fifth Jack Ryan film but is now saying that he is no longer attached but one is, in fact, being prepped to stay Gosling.

Noyce was once set to direct Ford as Ryan in “The Sum of All Fears,” but Ford didn’t like the script and dropped out. The studio then decided that it would be a great idea to “reboot” the series and make the character younger so they rewrote the script and cast Affleck as the younger Ryan. The plan was to follow that film up with “Red Rabbit” which Tom Clancy actually wrote with the younger character (and new movie series) in mind. Unfortunately, the numbers for “Sum” weren’t great and Ben Affleck’s career took a bit of a nosedive for a while and the idea was quickly dropped.

Fast forward a little and Noyce is attached to direct a film entitled “By Any Means Necessary” about “a cop who turns to a mobster for inside information to prevent a terrorist attack.â€Â? Well, Paramount Pictures owns the Jack Ryan character and somewhere along the way decides to develop this film as a Jack Ryan picture (without any Tom Clancy involvement). Noyce leaves the project, but Anton Fuqua (Training Day) comes aboard and everyone starts talking Ryan Gosling. I guess Ben Affleck is now too old?

There’s little doubt that Gosling is on the Hollywood fast track for A-list status so he’s a good choice if they really want to revive the series. The question I have is, why? The world loved Jack Ryan when he was being played by Harrison Ford, but I think a lot of that was Harrison Ford and really good filmmaking. I’m not so sure the world is in love with the character of Jack Ryan even if they do like reading the Tom Clancy books he’s featured in. It seems to me that it would make more sense to just create a new character and go forward without all the baggage (backstory that no longer makes sense) of the Jack Ryan character.

I’m not even sure why Gosling would want to tackle this character. Jack Ryan isn’t exactly James Bond, and, at this point, the character has gone through so many changes it doesn’t seem like the kind of role he’s been choosing up to this point. I understand how he might want to find a possible franchise character but I’m not sure Jack Ryan should be it.

What do you guys think? Any Tom Clancy fans pissed off about this?