Alan Ritchson wants to do Reacher for a long time, and Lee Child has written enough novels about Jack Reacher to keep the book-to-screen adaptation going for 30 seasons if they really wanted to. Meanwhile, Neagley, the new Reacher spinoff, is in a different situation. It’s a very new section of this world with very little source material to work with. Now Ritchson has opened up about the “luxury” and “burden” of introducing this spinoff.
At the moment, Season 4 of Reacher is airing on the 2026 TV schedule, Season 5 is in production, and Prime Video is getting ready to premiere its spinoff, Neagley, in September. So, while speaking with the AP about his own show continuing while a new series debuts, Alan Ritchson said:
We’re on different ends of the spectrum now, where there’s like 30 books about Reacher, and we’re inside his head the whole time, and it’s all sort of told through his POV. The only thing I protect is the integrity of what Lee Child did for us. Whereas Neagley, Lee never really dove into the backstory there, so there’s the luxury and the burden of expanding on what’s not there. There’s something really fun about that.
I totally see what he’s saying here. Reacher has the luxury of being based on Lee Child’s bestselling books. However, it can also be a burden to be beholden to said source material. Meanwhile, Neagley’s story is not explored in nearly as much detail in the books, so the new show has the luxury of building something essentially from scratch. However, that’s also a big challenge, and, in its own way, a burden. So, both these shows are holding their own unique double-edged swords.
Then, when you put the shows together, you get a new wonderful challenge. That’s because Reacher and Neagley are connected. Maria Sten’s Frances Neagley was introduced on Alan Ritchson’s show, and we know the Jack Reacher actor will appear in the spinoff. So, the projects have to find a balance between standing on their own and acknowledging each other.
Personally, I’m interested to see how they do that in the long-run, because Neagley and Reacher are quite different. Of course, the source material is one reason why, seeing as Sten’s show can go in new directions, while Ritchson’s is based on books. However, they’re also different in the sense that Reacher tells a new story with new characters every single season, whereas Neagley will stay in the same world with the same people season after season (pending renewal).
So, overall, I get why Ritchson described Neagley as both a “luxury” and a “burden.” On the one hand, it’s amazing to expand the world in a new way. On the other, it’s a challenge to do just that in a way that is both fresh and loyal to the universe that’s already built.
Now, to see if they do this successfully, you can stream new episodes of Reacher every Wednesday with an Amazon Prime subscription. Then, on September 16, you’ll be able to enter the world of Neagley when Season 1 drops.
