The first theatrical poster for the forthcoming Tom Clancy adaptation Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit has arrived online, apparently released just prior to the death of Clancy earlier today.IGN has the image–and doesn’t make any mention of Clancy’s passing–which you can see at right. The film stars Chris Pine, Keira Knightley and Kevin Costne. Thor director Kenneth Branagh directs.Star Trek star Pine is the fourth A-list actor to play Ryan in a major motion picture, after Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is the first time Ryan’s name has appeared in a title, though, and follows on the heels of movies like Jack Reacher and Alex Cross in inserting the character name into the title in the hopes of building a recognizable franchise around popular literary characters. In the case of both Jack Reacher and Alex Cross, the box office numbers weren’t what the studio had hoped, and some analysts blamed the generic “name-only” titles in that it was difficult to guess what the movies were about if you weren’t already a fan of the books. That’s a criticism that also fell on Disney’s well-reviewed mega-flop John Carter. With Jack Ryan, they’ve added a subtitle to the poster that Paramount likely hopes will help them avoid that particular misstep.Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is set to hit U.S. theaters on Christmas; expect the promotional campaign to really ramp up around Thanksgiving, once we’re clear of Thor: The Dark World and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire‘s massive, attention-grabbing releases.
