Ritchson Says 'Die Trying' Reacher Plan Died After Re-Election

Alan Ritchson says a 'Die Trying' adaptation was approved for 'Reacher' until, in his words, 'someone got re-elected,' shelving Lee Child's militia novel.

Alan Ritchson says a long-requested Jack Reacher storyline made it further than fans realized — and then vanished. On Threads, responding to a fan who laments that the show skips Lee Child's second novel 'Die Trying,' Ritchson wrote: 'My favorite book. Fun fact: I had it approved until someone got re-elected.' According to TheWrap, the post has drawn more than 73,000 likes. The book sends Reacher into an extremist mountain militia plotting to secede from the United States and form a white-only state. The Blast reports that Ritchson did not name Donald Trump in the post or explain who made the call, though his 're-elected' wording appeared to point to Trump's return following the 2024 election, and notes the star has been an outspoken Trump critic.

The Blast points out that the show has already modernized older Child material: Season 4 took on 'Gone Tonight' author Child's 2009 'Gone Tomorrow,' a post-9/11 story, and reworked its geopolitical backdrop for a modern setting rather than recreating it. That track record makes the claim of a scrapped approved adaptation especially surprising — the series had apparently found ways to adapt sensitive books, yet this one, Ritchson says, died at a political moment. According to TheWrap, a Prime Video representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Both TheWrap and The Blast report the same Threads exchange, so Ritchson's words themselves are well documented. His influence over source material is real but shared — The Blast cites a Forbes interview in which Ritchson said choosing each book is a group effort involving producer Don Granger, who optioned the rights and worked with Child early on. Nothing in the reports establishes whether Amazon, producers, or someone else made the decision.

Even with 'Die Trying' off the table, the series is heading into darker territory. The Blast reports Season 5 sends Reacher to Mother's Rest, a town ringed by wheat fields, where he meets private investigator Michelle Chang, whose partner has disappeared — and Amazon says the pair uncover a 'dangerous and deadly criminal conspiracy' based on Child's 'Make Me.' For readers, the immediate stakes are whether the militia novel ever returns as a future season, or whether the window closes for good.