hossein amini Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I can't help but make the obvious joke here, so I'll just go ahead and say it: Boldly going where no man has gone before, Chris Pine is not only Unstoppable, but he also knows The Art of Making Money. How? By attaching himself to every iconic reboot he can. Variety reports that Pine has entered into talks with Paramount to become the next Jack Ryan. "Talks" seems a fancy way of putting it, as Paramount president Adam Goodman is already talking him up as Ryan: "Tom Clancy created an unforgettable character with Jack Ryan. With Chris in this role, we've taken our first step in creating a re-boot that lives up to the successful lineage of the franchise."

Paramount has been shaping a Jack Ryan reboot for some time. Last year, they were in negotiations with Sam Raimi to come on board to direct or develop a franchise, but he returned to the webslinger instead. Last December, Hossein Amini came aboard to write a new installment, which remains the draft Paramount is working with. There's no director attached yet.

Stepping into the CIA shoes of Jack Ryan really puts Pine well onto the Harrison Ford track. Not many actors can land one iconic character in their careers, let alone two. Of course, "iconic" is a loose compliment for Ryan as he's really more of a cool name than a strikingly memorable character. (Admit it -- the movies are cool, but Ryan is like Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt --he's just kind of moving things along in a bad-ass fashion.) Perhaps Pine can change that, and reboot Ryan into something clear and present in pop culture.

Jack Ryan will live again, if Paramount gets their way. According to The Hollywood Reporter, they've hired Hossein Amini to pen a brand new Jack Ryan picture for the studio.

Amini is best known for his classic literature adaptations like Jude, The Four Feathers, and The Wings of the Dove (for which he was nominated for an Oscar). But he seems to be moving into action films these days, like the upcoming Elmore Leonard adaptation Killshot, and he's currently working on James Sallis' Drive for Hugh Jackman. So, Tom Clancy should be a relative breeze in comparison to Leonard, Sallis, and Thomas Hardy.

However, he won't actually be adapting a Clancy book -- Amini will be penning an origin story that reboots the character into a young man, and puts him at the center of an original story. Paramount is hoping that Ryan can become a new franchise, just like they're aiming for with Star Trek, G.I. Joe, Transformers, and Avatar: The Last Airbender, among others.

But really ... is Jack Ryan really worth franchising? I enjoyed The Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games like most of the civilized world, but am hard pressed to name anything very memorable about Ryan. He's not James Bond, with cars, women, and martinis, or Bourne with his amnesia, lethal skills, and boxes of passports. What is he, other than a smart guy who thwarts international plots? I've never read the books, so I could be missing something important. But from what I can see, he just has a cool name, and that translates to a brand these days?

We first caught wind of Shanghai this past summer, as part of the announcement that The Weinstein Co. had landed $285 million to make Asian-themed films. At the time it was described simply as "an action epic set during World War II." A few months later, James Rocchi told us that John Cusack was in negotiations to star as "an American expat who returns to Shanghai in the months before Pearl Harbor due to the death of his friend." James noted that the beautiful Gong Li had already been cast, and that director Mikael Håfström was on board. Cusack and Håfström previously worked together on 1408.

Variety Asia Online is reporting that another piece of the puzzle has been added: Ken Watanabe has joined the cast. No details are offered about the role he will play, though the article fleshes out the plot a little. Referring to the character that will be played by Cusack (now confirmed to star), the article states: "While trying to solve the murder [of his friend], he falls in love and discovers a much larger secret that his own government is hiding." Hossein Amini wrote the script; he was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on The Wings of the Dove, and also adapted Jude as well as the more recent Killshot.

Watanabe has great presence; he shot to prominence opposite Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai and was memorable in both Batman Begins and Letters from Iwo Jima; he also received kudos for his work as a businessman beset by Alzheimer's Disease in Memories of Tomorrow. During the time period covered in the upcoming film, Shanghai was occupied by Japan, but, as noted above, we'll have to wait and see which part the Japanese-born Watanabe will play. Production is expected to start this spring in Shanghai. Watanabe was also recently cast in Cirque du Freak, which rolls this month, but I presume the filming schedules are compatible.