Tom Hardy as John Clark in WITHOUT REMORSE? YES PLEASE.

Because nothing would make the hyperbaric chamber interrogation of the drug dealer more badass than Clark glowering at him, "Your punishment must be more severe!"

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/08/21/is-tom-hardy-without-remorse

I for one am fairly excited about the reboot of the Jack Ryan movies, especially with Tom Clancy apparently being involved in writing the scripts. I've always been a huge fan of the Jack Ryan books (Executive Orders might be my favorite book of all, and my brother and I re-read those books to the point where most of them fell apart). I wish Alec Baldwin had stayed on as Ryan, he seemed like a perfect fit for the role, embodying Ryan's idealism without diminishing his ability to get his hands dirty when the job required it. For my money, The Hunt For Red October might be the best book-to-movie adaptation ever. The movie series just kind of sputtered out after that. Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger were alright, as far as that goes, but as much as I like Harrison Ford he was too old for the part. Sum of All Fears was a serviceable movie, but a hot mess as far as a book adaptation goes. Part of that was screwing with the timeline so bad. It sounds like Paramount's done a smart thing by going back and telling an original story with a young Jack Ryan (although Clancy's own attempt at that in RED RABBIT was kind of underwhelming). WITHOUT REMORSE was originally set during the Vietnam era, but it wouldn't be hard to update the story to modern times.
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So what makes a good book-to-movie adaptation? I think casting might be the key.The actors have to fit the roles well, probably more than anything else. Liberties can be taken with the story so long as they fit the spirit of the story. I think the climax in Red October looks better on screen the way they filmed it as opposed to the way it was in the book. I distinctly remember a few scenes added into Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 that weren't in the book that I really liked, I felt like they added something to the story. Some movies fail because they try to be too faithful to the source material.

Hopefully someday there will be a movie of THE EIGHTH DAY for me to nitpick at :)

-Mike, out.