Tom Cruise has been on a bit of a high lately, starring in both the excellent fifth installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, and Doug Liman's surprisingly entertaining Edge of Tomorrow. Things seem to be continuing with his next two projects as well, which him headlining both Liman's follow-up to that film, Mena, and the sequel to the well-received sequel to Christopher McQuarrie's Jack Reacher, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. But whereas Mena remains hugely secretive, we're starting to get a better sense of what will be going down in the Edward Zwick-helmed Jack Reacher sequel, which will co-star Cobie Smulders, Aldis Hodge, and Holt McCallany.
The main evidence of what we might expect from Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, beyond the synopsis of Lee Child's source material, comes from two pictures that surfaced today on People, one of which features Cruise and Smulders surveying what looks like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Then there's a second image of Reacher under arrest by some local police officers, one of which is played by The Walking Dead regular Jason Douglas. You can check out the photos that People premiered right below:
I will admit that my favorite thing about Jack Reacher was its use of setting - Pittsburgh, specifically - and a fascinating range of supporting roles, including a memorable turn from filmmaker Werner Herzog as a creepy villain. There is perhaps no city in America that has as much potential to steal the show away from even proven stars like Cruise and Smulders than New Orleans, so this bodes well for the new film. And though Zwick has never had a particularly good taste in scripts, he has consistently provided his films with a gorgeous, fascinating visual timbre, a feeling of being in a distinct world and seeing through the perspective of a single person. So, here's hoping this all hashes out in more forgivable terms than Zwick's The Last Samurai, which also starred Cruise.
