Chris Pine rode a pretty big wave in the wake of Star Trek. He has great on screen presence, looks like a leading man and can even be pretty funny. So he started to pile up some more potential franchises to lead, one of which was a new Jack Ryan movie.

Jack Ryan, for those of who who don’t remember, is the hero of the Tom Clancy novels that were the basis of The Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger, Patriot Games, and The Sum of All Fears. He was sort of like James Bond, if Bond were an american CIA analyst.

Unfortunately, according to Variety, the project has lost it’s director:

With his TV commitments piling up, director Jack Bender has fallen out of Paramount and Skydance Pictures’ untitled Jack Ryan project.

Bender is currently the exec producer on Fox’s “Alcatraz” and is set to helm the Syfy pilot “Rewind.” Par was hoping to get this project into production sometime later this summer, and Bender’s TV workload was making it difficult for him to find the time.

This puts the untitled Jack Ryan film on shaky ground, but there is still hope that this won’t delay the start of filming. The producers have until Star Trek 2 wraps before their movie was intended to shoot, so they have to work quickly to find a replacement.

“The soldier of the future is an F-16 on legs.” Slated for fall of this year, gamers will get to take a look at just what the militaristic fantasy genius Tom Clancy sees in the next generation of soldier. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier continues to press the limits of what we come to think of as war.

While the trailer below leaves a lot to the imagination and acts as only a teaser of what is to come, the eerie pretense of the soldiers is enough to bring our attention right to this game. After the success of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, affectionately referred to as GRAW, and its sequel, we know the reputation that Clancy games must live up to.

To further wet our appetites, it looks like there will be a multiplayer beta coming too this summer for anyone purchasing Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction. Until then, take a peek at this great teaser trailer for the XBox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

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While James Bond gets a lot of attention on the big screen there’s another pseudo-spy that’s just as good in my opinion.  I’m talking about Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. Clancy’s novels have been the basis for four films to date with various actors taking on the Ryan role.

Way back in 1990 The Hunt for Red October started it all with Alec Baldwin as the first Jack Ryan. When Baldwin left, Harrison Ford took over for two films, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. The series faltered somewhat thereafter until Ben Affleck arrived in The Sum of all Fears.

As diverse as the actors have been the series overall has held together pretty well in my opinion. While Ford was probably the closest to what Ryan was like in the novels bringing Affleck in was necessary to reboot the franchise with a younger star. Sadly, that never seemed to work out.

Fortunately, producer Mace Neufeld, who has been with the series since the very beginning, is still planning a fresh start.  Chris Pine (Star Trek) will take Affleck’s place as Jack Ryan and word is the fifth film may not be based on a Clancy novel as the other films have been:

“We ran out of books,” says Nuefeld. “Red Rabbit was the last one, and we just couldn’t seem to get a script out of it.” Red Rabbit is one of only two novels, alongside The Cardinal of the Kremlin, in which Ryan is young enough for Pine’s portrayal to be book-faithful.”

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