Even though the new Amazon adaptation, ”Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan," uses the author's name in the title, it's more of a symbolic gesture than denoting strict adherence to the past. After all, the eight-episode series isn't based on any of Clancy's books. But it is inspired by the franchise's impressive past.
”It's an original story, so it's not an adaptation of any of the novels," director and executive producer Daniel Sackheim told IndieWire. ”But I think it's inspired in the same way as the Harrison Ford movies."
He also said they're working on a ”different kind of Jack Ryan," but one who adheres to many of the same characteristics brought to life by Ford in ”Patriot Games" and ”Clear and Present Danger."
”What was so great about the Harrison Ford movies was that they were about an everyman hero," Sackheim said. ”He was a guy who wasn't a superhero. He was heroic, but he was vulnerable. He wasn't afraid to be scared. He was a regular man and a hero."
This description ties directly to the character Clancy first created in ”The Hunt For Red October"; a man who worked as a civilian long before he accepted a job at the CIA.
”We very much lean into the notion of a guy who starts out as an analyst," Sackheim said. ”In the first episode, when we meet Jack Ryan, he's an analyst. He kind of discovers something and gets roped into participating in the field. Little by little by little, he becomes an operative. So the first season is really following the arc of a guy learning to be a CIA agent, or what the CIA calls an operative vs. an analyst."
