Rumored since June, Mission Impossible star Tom Cruise, 49, has confirmed that he will play the role of Jack Reacher in One Shot, an adaptation from Lee Child’s ninth bestselling thriller, reports Deadline.
American screenwriter, producer, director Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects, Valkyrie) will direct the project; both men are also linked to Top Gun 2 in 2013.
Fans of British author Jim Grant, who uses the pseudonym Lee Child, may not have pictured Cruise in the role of a 6’5” 250-lb ex-military policeman Jack Reacher.
However the author was very excited about Cruise being cast, and said, “Reacher’s size in the books is a metaphor for an unstoppable force, which Cruise portrays in his own way."
One Shot tells the story of a former military man, who, upon his arrest for killing five people, seeks out Reacher’s help to prove his innocence. Filming is scheduled this autumn in Pittsburgh.
In the meantime, Cruise stars with Jeremy Renner in with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, due in theaters on December 16, and is currently filming the musical Rock of Ages, which is set to open next June 1, 2012.