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Alan Ritchson reveals a ‘Reacher’ season was canceled after a major political change

Alan Ritchson’s comment on a social media platform points to a very specific reason the plan fell apart

What nearly happened to ‘Reacher’ is stranger than anything we saw on the show. One of the plans, it turns out, was for a season based solely on Lee Child’s ‘Die Trying,’ which was approved for the Prime Video series before the whole thing seemingly vanished. The reveal came Friday on Threads. A fan mentioned they are annoyed that they are never going to do “the book where he kills his way through a white supremacist militia camp,” namely, the 2004 novel ‘Die Trying,’ the second in Child’s Jack Reacher series. Alan Ritchson responded that it’s his favorite in the franchise, adding, “Fun fact: I had it approved until someone got re-elected.” He did not specify who the politician was. However, Variety stated that Ritchson has previously spoken out against Donald Trump, thus leading readers to assume he was alluding to Trump’s 2024 re-election as the likely reference.

In ‘Die Trying,’ Lee Child tells the story of Reacher and Chicago physical therapist Holly Johnson, who gets kidnapped by an extremist militia group that wants to make their own territory in Montana. This might be why it’s such a popular book in the series: it specifically embraces that extremist political ideology, and an adaptation might face scrutiny depending on the political climate. Notably, the Epstein connection is what makes the timing land more challenging. Ritchson recently talked about the Epstein documents and Trump on the ‘Happy Sad Confused With Josh Horowitz’ podcast, saying that the president “has the keys to the nuclear codes” and wanted the documents released. That comment got a pretty direct reply from the White House. Press aide Abigail Jackson said in a statement that Trump “totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein,” as reported by Reuters.

None of that changes any of the actual plans for the next show. ‘Reacher’ already has an official Season 5 order in place and is set to adapt Child’s ‘Make Me,’ according to The Hollywood Reporter. This continues a pattern that the show has been following since Season 2: avoiding the actual order of Child’s series and moving around the books in the timeline. The first season, based on the first book, ‘Killing Floor,’ was faithful to the original order, but ever since it has skipped ahead with ‘Bad Luck and Trouble’ (Season 2), ‘Persuader’ (Season 3), and ‘Gone Tomorrow’ (Season 4). This pattern is probably the reason why fans keep asking about ‘Die Trying’ in the first place. It’s one of the only early books the series as a whole has not delved into, and Ritchson’s response indicates it is not for lack of enthusiasm on his part.