"Reacher" has been a major hit for Prime Video and, as such, looks set to continue for some time to come. Viewers certainly aren't going anywhere if season 3 of the show is anything to go by. After a few things went wrong with season 2 of "Reacher," the series came out swinging for season 3, delivering a run of episodes that proved the best action show on TV has gotten its mojo back. As series lead Alan Ritchson's star continues to rise in the wake of the show's success, then, it seems the only future
hurdle Prime Video and the "Reacher" writers will have to overcome is their lead's availability.
One problem they certainly don't have to worry about is source material. With 29 books in Lee Child's Jack Reacher series, as well as a short story collection and the promise of more novels to come courtesy of Child's brother, Andrew, the "Reacher" writers really are spoiled for choice when it comes to stories on which to base upcoming seasons of the show. Everybody has their choice for which books should be adapted, too. Ritchson has his own pick for which novel should form the basis of a "Reacher" season, and we at /Film have made our picks of the 12 Reacher books Amazon should adapt moving forward. According to Child, however, there is one novel that won't ever make it to the small screen, as the author considers what is arguably one of the best books in his popular series un-filmable.
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Lee Child Thinks One Jack Reacher Book Is 'Impossible' To Adapt
In a 2023 interview with FortressOfSolitude Child was asked which novel he'd like to see adapted for "Reacher" in the future. "The easy answer to that is I want them all adapted," he replied. "Year after year, that would work for me." The author went on to explain that, since the Jack Reacher bibliography is so expansive, it really becomes a question of "What order do we do them in?" He continued:
"Some of them aren't going to work. '61 Hours' is a book that I really like as a book, but I realized that can never be visual because it is this snowbound landscape, and that is very difficult to create. And it is also impossible to do take two, because take one has already put footprints in the snow, [so] you can't do take two."
It's an odd view to take, given that TV shows and movies have been shooting "snowbound landscapes" for literally decades. If snow precluded any sort of filming, then we'd have never gotten the excellent "True Detective: Night Country," which proved to be the best season of the crime anthology series since the first. For whatever reason, though, Child is convinced that "61 Hours" would just be a step too far.
The 14th entry in the Jack Reacher book series, "61 Hours" was first published in 2010 and sees Reacher taking on a biker gang and drug lord in a small South Dakota town in the middle of a particularly vicious and unrelenting winter. The novel is actually one of the best Jack Reacher books, with /Film's Jacob Hall describing it as "a fairly standard thriller [which] slowly escalates into Lee Child-flavored ridiculousness, climaxing with a final confrontation where Reacher's most famous trait (his height) becomes his greatest weakness." As such, fans would surely love to see this one adapted, but it seems Child feels that's impossible.
61 Hours Would Be A Great Book To Adapt For Reacher
Though "61 Hours" seems unlikely to be adapted for "Reacher" if Lee Child has anything to do with it, that doesn't mean we won't see elements of the story on-screen. As the author went on to say in his FortressOfSolitude interview, "Some books are going to be impossible. So, what we'll do with them [is] we will steal any good lines or any good scenes and shift them to other stories." If we never get an on-screen version of Reacher's snowbound escapade, then, we can at least expect to see some elements of the story to make it into a season in the near future. That's a good thing since the show is going to have to work hard to outdo "Reacher" season 3, which broke a huge Prime Video viewing record mostly due to the fact it was arguably the best season of the streaming series yet.
One of the biggest hurdles "Reacher" will have to overcome following season 3 is giving the titular ex-Army man an adversary more imposing than Olivier Richters' Paulie, the hulking henchman who somehow managed to make the already imposing Alan Ritchson look small. Fans were eagerly awaiting a climactic showdown between the two monsters, and the final protracted battle didn't disappoint. The show's writers will surely struggle to top that with future episodes, but "61 Hours" might hold the key. In the story, Reacher has to face off against a mysterious assassin who never misses, and much of the tension in the book comes from the countdown to this shady villain's arrival. That might be one way of topping the beefcake throwdown from season 3.
If we do get to see this hitman on-screen, though, it will likely be one of the elements borrowed from "61 Hours" rather than as part of an adaptation of that book. That is, if Child — who executive produces the streaming series — has anything to do with it. Otherwise the author seemed very optimistic that all the Jack Reacher novels could be adapted, adding, "There's infinite choice, and I look forward to those conversations."
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