Director Christopher McQuarrie revealed that there was a possibility of Jack Reacher sequel to be R-rated, which was discussed with Tom Cruise. The third installment of Jack Reacher was planned and apparently, it would have been R-Rated.
Tom Cruise is one of the most loved Hollywood stars who had given smashing hits over decades such as Top Gun, Minority Report, and of course the most popular Mission: Impossible film series. The 58-year-old actor portrayed Jack Reacher's character which is an action hero in Lee Child books.
The first installment of the Jack Reacher film was directed by McQuarrie. Moreover, the director went on to reunite with Cruise to create two more movies of his popular franchise, Mission: Impossible- Fallout and Mission: Impossible- Rogue Nation.
While Jack Reacher received mixed reviews, it performed well at the box office for Paramount Pictures. The revenue generated from the first installment helped the director to pitch an idea for a sequel, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.
The sequel failed to impress the critics and fans, which was one of the reasons the third installment never took place. However, McQuarrie revealed that he discussed the third installment of the franchise. In an interview with Empire, he disclosed that Jack Reacher 3 would have shown a lot of brutal scenes and eventually receive an R rating.
McQuarrie went on and explained that they both wanted to take the film series ahead and make the third installment to take the character in a different zone. "Take Reacher to a place where, in the post-Deadpool, post-Joker world, Reacher could have been an R-rated movie and an R-rated franchise and really fed into the brutality of those books."
According to the 52-year-old director, he and Cruise were all set to get into that. However, now the actor and director duo are coming together for another project, which will be different from Jack Reacher. However, Child told a few years back that Jack Reacher will get a reboot on television without the Mission Impossible star.
Fans not liking Jack Reacher: Never Go Back was not the only reason for Jack Reacher 3 not being made. Apparently, Child regained the rights in 2016 of Jack Reacher as he was never impressed by Cruise playing the lead character in the first place. In fact, the author has multiple times mentioned in his interviews that the War of the Worlds star is now "too old for action movies."