John Woo to direct Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six.

[Dark Jezter]

Just saw this last night, but the news is only about a week old...

John Woo to direct film adaptation of Tom Clancy's "Rainbow Six"
Source: Variety
Date: June 3, 2004, 10:20 am
Submitted: Junkyard


Action helmer John Woo (“Mission: Impossible 2”) has been tapped to direct Paramount’s film adaptation of Tom Clancy's "Rainbow Six," Variety reports.

Under their banner ‘Lion Rock’, Woo and partner Terence Chang, who currently have a first-look deal at Paramount, will most likely produce the thriller.

Unlike other past Clancy’s film projects which focused on the character ‘Jack Ryan’, “Rainbow Six” centers on the shadowy CIA agent character, ‘John Clark.’

In the story, Clark joins several colleagues to leave the CIA and create an England-based multinational organization, designed to battle terrorism.

Clark, who has been featured in Clancy’s "The Hunt for Red October," "Patriot Games," "Clear and Present Danger," was most recently played by actor Liev Schreiber in “The Sum of All Fears” for director Phil Alden Robinson.

Paramount is also developing Clancy’s "Red Rabbit" and "Without Remorse," which both projects are based around the John Clark character.

Woo, who last directed Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman in “Paycheck,” is also attached to “Spy Hunter,” the Universal actioner starring Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson.

Source: http://www.themoviebox.net/php/news...ull&id=1086283204&archive=&start_from=&ucat=&

As a long-time fan of both Tom Clancy's novels and John Woo's movies, I can't help but feel optimistic about this announcement. Despite the fact that Tom Clancy's novels contain realistic action and John Woo loves highly-stylized action, I still think Rainbow Six could be a cool movie. I've accepted that a lot will be trimmed from the novel, because you simply can't fit an 800-page novel into a 2-hour movie without removing a lot of stuff. Besides, I thought that the other movie adaptations of Clancy's novels were good, even if they didn't adhere strictly to their source material.

 

[ShadowX]

I have high hopes for this translation. This is one of those Clancy books that is filled with meandering writing and useless scenes. If they can excise the right stuff this could very well be better than the book.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Rainbow Six isn't my favorite of Tom Clancy's novels, but I still liked it. Rainbow Six is a good candidate for a movie because it's smaller-scale and more tightly-focused than some of Clancy's other novels from the last decade. If they tried to make a movie out of Executive Orders, it would have to be (at least) four hours long, have a huge cast, and a big special effects budget to accomodate the huge land, sea, and air battles.

I hope they cast good actors for John Clark and Ding Chavez, as I've always liked those two characters.

 

[Enforcer]

I like Tom Clancy's books, including Rainbow Six. I am worried, however, that John Woo will take the realism of Clancy and dilute it with silliness like dual pistol wielding and lots of random doves. That stuff is fine when the movie is meant to be kind of over-the-top, like Face Off, but it's not appropriate for a Clancy movie.

 

[KenM]

Clark is my favorite Clancy character. The book Clark, the movies that he was in really did a hack job to him. That Variety sorce is wrong. Clark was not in "Red October" or "Patriot Games", neither the movies or books. They might not even do a translation of the book. They might just take the basic idea of an elite force to fight terrorism and totally change everything else from book,

 

[Dark Jezter]

Yeah, I also noticed that the article incorrectly stated John Clark as being in Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, and Red Rabbit. Still, I don't think that the movies butchered John Clark's character very badly; in the books, John Clark is intelligent and fearless, and not afraid to use a little ruthlessness to get the job done. He's also portrayed this way in the movies.

The announcement of a Without Remorse movie excites me as well, because it's my favorite Tom Clancy novel, as well as the novel that made me a big fan of John Clark.

 

[Ghostwind]

So who would be everyone's pick for the casting of John Clark? When I first read Without Remorse, I immediately thought of Nicolas Cage...

 

[DM_Matt]

Spoiler

I seriously doubt that Hollywood is going to produce a movie with environmentalists as villains, let alone have them hunted like dogs through the jungle and slaughtered by soldiers, before the rest get left to starve or get eaten by predators. I think they are going to pull a Sum of All Fears and insert some sort of ludicrous replacement villain to be politically correct.

 

[Dark Jezter]

So who would be everyone's pick for the casting of John Clark? When I first read Without Remorse, I immediately thought of Nicolas Cage...

I thought that Williem Dafoe did a good job as John Clark in Clear and Present Danger, and I wouldn't mind him returning to the role in the Rainbow Six movie.

Of course, since Without Remorse takes place when John Clark is in his 20s, they'd have to find a younger actor for the role. Matt Damon might be fitting for the role, he's already proven that he can play an action star in The Borne Identity.

Spoiler

I seriously doubt that Hollywood is going to produce a movie with environmentalists as villains, let alone have them hunted like dogs through the jungle and slaughtered by soldiers, before the rest get left to starve or get eaten by predators. I think they are going to pull a Sum of All Fears and insert some sort of ludicrous replacement villain to be politically correct.

Spoiler

I still think it's possible that the villians in the movie will be eco-terrorists, mainly because the eco-terrorists in the book were rich, white socialites. Now, if the terrorists were arab extremists, on the other hand...

Although I enjoyed The Sum of all Fears movie, I do agree that changing the terrorists from islamic fundamentalists to neo-nazis was obviously a spineless act of political correctness.

 

[DM_Matt]

Spoiler

I still think it's possible that the villians in the movie will be eco-terrorists, mainly because the eco-terrorists in the book were rich, white socialites. Now, if the terrorists were arab extremists, on the other hand...

Although I enjoyed The Sum of all Fears movie, I do agree that changing the terrorists from islamic fundamentalists to neo-nazis was obviously a spineless act of political correctness.

Spoiler

Eco-terrorists maybe, but I would be very surprised if they met so brutal an end

RE: Sum of All Fears. It wasn't just spineless political correctness, it made no sense. There is no reason whatsoever why Nazism would suddenly come back to prominence if the US and Russia nuked each other. I wonder who was responsable for the change. It could have been the studio, but then again it could have been Afleck, who is a Chomskyite. I could see him having qualms about being the hero of a movie with Palestinian villains.