Quick tip for Entertainment Tonight: when you release a movie trailer, you don’t talk over the damn trailer, because that kind of ruins the experience. Putting that tiny little nitpick aside, Entertainment Tonight had the honor of releasing the first teaser trailer for Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, a sequel to the 2012 film based off of the book series written by Lee Child. While I wouldn’t really label the first film as amazing, it was still an above-average action-thriller, held up by a stoic yet badass performance by Tom Cruise. Sure his height didn’t match that of his 6’5 book counterpart, but then again many people thought Hugh Jackman would fail as Wolverine because he was too tall and we all know how that turned out.
Based on the book Never Go Back, Jack Reacher 2 will have our titular character return to Virginia, where he once served as a military investigator and head of the Military Police. The reason for him returning home: a woman named Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders), who was picked to take over his position as head of the MP, has been arrested under charges of espionage. Deducing that things aren’t what they appear to be, Reacher breaks Turner out of custody and the two go on the run from the Law, hoping to clear her name and uncover the truth. Fists will collide and secrets will be uncovered, amongst them the reason why Reacher himself chose to leave his position and become the badass drifter he is today.
Unfortunately, the director of the first Jack Reacher, Christopher McQuarie, will not be reprising his role for the sequel, despite proving his worth as an action director with last year’s Mission Impossible: Rouge Nation. Instead, the film will be headed by another former Tom Cruise collaborator Edward Zwick, who directed the heavily underrated The Last Samurai. The screenplay for the film was written in collaboration between Zwick and Last Samurai producer Marshall Herskovitz, working from an earlier draft written by Richard Wenk (The Equalizer). The film is set to release in theaters on October 21, whether it turns out to be a fun sequel or a disappointment remains up in the air.