It shouldn't surprise anyone that Paramount is trying to reboot the Jack Ryan franchise.

It also shouldn't surprise anyone that Chris Pine appears to be the man they want to step into the character previously played by Alec Baldwin, Ben Affleck, and Harrison Ford.

Paramount's smart to try to lock Pine down to a second franchise.  His work in "Star Trek" this summer immediately put him on the radar of pretty much every filmmaker in town, and in my opinion, it's one of the most immediate star-making turns since the early work by Harrison Ford.  There's a swagger to Pine and a confidence that makes him arresting onscreen, and yet he's got enough of a sense of humor about himself that it's appealing and not off-putting.  He's a credible action lead, but he's obviously also got a brain in that head.  Basically, he's the package people are looking for when they talk about movie stars, and it's been a while since we've seen one show up fully formed like this.

What I'm really curious about is what sort of premise they'll be dropping Pine's Ryan into, since they're not planning to adapt any of Clancy's novels this time.  Hossein Amini has a strange pedigree for this type of movie.  I like his work on "The Wings Of The Dove" and "Killshot," and I'm really curious to see "Drive," which sounds like more of a pure action movie, but so far, he's sort of unproven in this arena.  Lorenzo Di Bonaventura and Mace Neufeld are producing the film for Paramount, and it sounds like they're still in development.

The real question at this point is which one's going to shoot first... "Star Trek" or this new Ryan film.  There's also the DJ Caruso film, "The Art Of Making Money," which he's getting ready to sign on to make as well, but I'll bet that shoots first, since it sounds like it's basically just waiting to cast before it's ready to go.  The two franchise pictures are both works-in-progress, and if Paramount's smart, they'll make sure the material is in great shape before they start, rather than chasing a release date for the sheer sake of it.

The story broke today in Variety.

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