If it wasn’t for John Krasinski, then the Jack Ryan brand may well have been consigned to the history books by now. Amazon’s popular series was recently renewed for a fourth season long before the third has even been awarded a premiere date, giving the former Office alum the distinction of being the longest-tenured version of the character yet.
One of the major debates surrounding the franchise’s legacy is who made the best version of the title hero; while a lot of people would agree that Harrison Ford was the most well-rounded iteration of Tom Clancy’s creation, Alec Baldwin’s The Hunt for Red October arguably remains the finest installment in terms of overall quality.
The Sum of All Fears‘ Ben Affleck falls squarely in the middle, which leaves Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit‘s Chris Pine at the bottom of the pile. The 2014 action thriller was inevitably pegged to launch a multi-film run of espionage adventures, but those plans were quietly shelved when it only managed to earn $135 million at the box office, no doubt caused by the decidedly mediocre reviews.
It’s not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination, just not a very exciting one, and didn’t really give audiences a reason to care about whether or not we got to see Pine in the role again. However, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit has been experiencing a resurgence on Netflix as per FlixPatrol, where it’s risen sixteen places on the most-watched list over the last couple of days.