As rumored earlier this month, Kevin Costner is set to play CIA Agent William Harper, the mentor of Chris Pine’s Jack Ryan in the still-untitled Kenneth Branagh film. Deadline brings added word, however, that Costner also plans to spin the role off for the studio’s Without Remorse, based on a 1993 Clancy novel. That novel’s plot is officially described as follows:
John Kelly… is still getting over the accidental death of his wife six months before, when he befriends a young woman with a decidedly checkered past. When that past reaches out for her in a particularly horrifying fashion, he vows revenge and, assembling all of his old skills, sets out to track down the men responsible, before it can happen again.
At the same time, the Pentagon is readying an operation to rescue a key group of prisoners in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp. One man, they find, knows the terrain around the camp better than anyone else they have: a certain former Navy SEAL named John Kelly.
Kelly has his own mission. The Pentagon wants him for theirs. Attempting to juggle the two, Kelly (now code-named Mr. Clark) finds himself confronted by a vast array of enemies, both at home and abroad — men so skillful that the slightest misstep means death. And the fate of dozens of people, including Kelly himself, rests on his making sure that misstep never happens.
Men aren’t born dangerous. They grow dangerous. And the most dangerous of all, Kelly learns, are the ones you least expect…
The outlet notes that the studio is keen on getting Tom Hardy to play the Kelly role, though his casting is far for sure thing at this stage. Christopher McQuarrie is currently writing the screenplay and is loosely attached to direct.
Recently the star of the television miniseries “Hatfields and McCoys,” Costner can soon be seen as Jonathan “Pa” Kent in the upcoming Superman reboot, Man of Steel.
(Photo Credit: Daniel Tanner/ WENN.com)
