Author Tom Clancy is likely best known for his Jack Ryan novels which spawned films such as The Hunt for The Red October, Clear & Present Danger, Patriot Games, The Sum of All Fears, and the last film they made Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. A series reboot is currently in its third season on Amazon Prime Video starring actor turned horror director John Krasinski.
We’ve decided to put together a rundown of all the Tom Clancy film projects in development including the video game adaptations that Ubisoft’s production company Ubisoft Motion Pictures/Ubisoft Film & Television is working on.
WITHOUT REMORSE & RAINBOW SIX
WITHOUT REMORSE – Clark, aka John Terrence Kelly, is an ex-Navy-SEAL-turned-operations-officer for the CIA who has appeared in 17 novels starting with 1988’s “The Cardinal of the Kremlin.” Though mainly seen as a secondary character who helps CIA analyst Jack Ryan with the physical elements of missions, Clark finally stepped into the spotlight with “Without Remorse,” which tells his backstory on how he came to work for the CIA. The Navy SEAL, goes on a path to avenge his wife’s murder only to find himself inside a larger conspiracy.
Actor Michael B. Jordan (Creed, Black Panther) is playing CIA operator John Clark for a string of films for Paramount Pictures. The character is a supporting character in the Jack Ryan universe previously seen in Clear & Present Danger played by Willem Dafoe and The Sum of All Fears played by Liev Schriber. The first project he’ll be playing the character is in Without Remorse from Sicario: Day of Soldado and ZeroZeroZero director Stefano Sollima.
Michael posted a teaser video for Without Remorse on his Instagram account. Joining him in supporting roles include Jamie Bell as Robert Ritter (seen in Clear & Present Danger played by Henry Czerny) Jodie Turner-Smith as Karen Greer (the daughter of James Greer).
Filming took place in Postdam, Germany at Studio Babelsberg and other scenes were shot in Washington D.C. as principal photography was expected to be completed before the pandemic shutdown various film productions. Paramount gave the film a release date of September 18th, but they might not be able to make that date.
Jordan is also attached to reprise the Clark role in Rainbow Six, a follow-up to Without Remorse, the Clancy novel helped to inspire the prolific Ubisoft tactical shooter video game of the same name.
RAINBOW SIX – The 1999 novel revolves around Ex-Navy SEAL Clark, who in the book is named head of an international task force to combat terrorism. The team quickly is confronted by a series of international incidents, making the real threat a group of terrorism bent on global destruction.
Akiva Goldsman was attached to produce Rainbow Six for Paramount back in 2017 with Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec named as screenwriters. The pair had previously worked on the scripts for Brad Bird’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and the third G.I. Joe film. A director has yet to be named.
While Without Remorse and Rainbow Six will more or less be adaptations of the Tom Clancy novels potentially linked to the existing Jack Ryan series, given the Krasinski show is a prequel, there are other plenty of other projects in development elsewhere.
Video Game developer Ubisoft put together a new production company Ubisoft Motion Pictures/Ubisoft Film & Television which was intended to help put together deals leading to multiple feature film adaptations one of the first ones to get released was the Michael Fassbender film Assassin’s Creed.
Clancy spawned a heap of video game franchises including Rainbow Six (17 games), Ghost Recon (15 games), Splinter Cell (7 games) and the more recent pair of The Division games set during post-pandemic all of which are were getting feature film adaptations with various stages of development at different studios.
SPLINTER CELL
Possibly the most talked-about project in Ubisoft’s stable would be the Splinter Cell film which began development back in 2004.
SPLINTER CELL – Focuses on Sam Fisher, a highly trained special operative in a fictional black-ops sub-division, “Echelon.” Fisher and the agents of Echelon utilize combat skills, weapons and cutting-edge gadgets to neutralize international terrorist threats and rogue forces in modern, realistic stories ripped from the headlines.
Originally, director Peter Berg (Lone Survivor) and screenwriter John J. McLaughlin (Black Swan) would work together on adapting the project for Paramount. Splinter Cell eventually moved to DreamWorks in 2005 with Daniel Pyne (Bosch, The Sum of All Fears, Any Given Sunday, The Manchurian Candidate) tapped to write a new script and then moved again to New Regency.
The New Regency incarnation involved director Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow, Bourne Identity) with Tom Hardy (Mad Max: Fury Road, The Dark Knight Returns) set to play Sam Fisher that would be produced by John Wick franchise’s Basil Iwanyk.
In 2015, Deadline reported that Frank John Hughes (Red Platoon) would be the latest writer to tackle a script after previous drafts from Eric Warren Singer and Sheldon Turner (Up In The Air, X-Men: First Class). Liman would exit the project not too long after that.
Liman seemingly left the project and in 2017 Basil told Collider they were seemingly still chuggingly along. Since then, Tom Hardy has been busy with his series Taboo and the two Venom films for Sony Pictures. There hasn’t been an update on the project in a couple of years.
THE DIVISION
THE DIVISION – In the near future, a pandemic virus is spread via paper money on Black Friday, decimating the city of New York and killing millions. By Christmas, what’s left of society has descended into chaos. A group of civilians, trained to operate in catastrophic times, are activated in an attempt to save who and what remains.
Ubisoft struck a deal with Netflix to develop a film based on The Division games with director David Leitch (Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, John Wick, Hobbs & Shaw) attached with writer Rafe Judkins (Amazon’s Wheel of Time) handling the script.
At the same time, Netflix announced that actors Jessica Chastain (IT: Chapter Two, Zero Dark Thirty, Interstellar) and Jake Gyllenhaal (Zodiac, Prisoners, Source Code, Nightcrawler) were set for lead roles along with producing the project.
We haven’t heard much about this since the original announcement as David Leitch is also attached to other films in development such as an Enter The Dragon remake for Warner Bros. and Universal’s Kung Fu movie for based on the David Carridine series from the 1970s. Dwayne Johnson recently announced on Instagram that development has begun on a sequel to Universal’s Hobbs & Shaw, but it’s unknown if Letich would return to direct.
GHOST RECON
GHOST RECON – The games revolve around a fictional unit of the U.S. Army Special Forces that essentially operates as the president’s private army, using the latest technology to infiltrate and takedown threats around the world without leaving any traces that they exist.
In the summer of 2013, Variety reported that Michael Bay (The Rock, 13 Hours, Bad Boys II) would be directing a Ghost Recon film for Ubisoft Motion Pictures and Warner Bros. with Y: The Last Man screenwriters Matthew Federman and Stephen Scaia hired to pen a script.
It doesn’t look like Ghost Recon is happening anytime soon as Michael Bay signed a multi-year film and television deal with Sony Pictures that could mean he might be involved with adapting video game projects for the newly formed PlayStation Studios.
