How Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse Connects to Jack Ryan

Warning: SPOILERS for Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse.

Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse has a direct connection to Jack Ryan, although the patriotic spy doesn’t appear and isn’t mentioned in the new film. Without Remorse, now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, is loosely based on Tom Clancy’s 1993 novel and it’s a new origin story for John Clark (Michael B. Jordan), a black-ops operative who was formerly known as elite Navy Seal Senior Chief John Kelly.

Jack Ryan is currently portrayed by John Krasinski in Amazon Prime’s titular series, which has had two seasons and is in production on season 3. Ryan has also been the subject of several films and was played by a number of A-list Hollywood actors: Alec Baldwin was the first cinematic Jack Ryan in 1990’s The Hunt For Red October, Harrison Ford played Ryan in 1992’s Patriot Games and 1994’s Clear and Present Danger, Ben Affleck was a younger Ryan in the 2002 origin story The Sum of All Fears, and Chris Pine took over the role in 2014’s reboot Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. Meanwhile, John Clark was played by Willem Dafoe in The Sum of All Fears while Liev Schrieber portrayed Clark in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. In both those films, Clark worked alongside Ryan, though they were sometimes antagonistic toward each other.

Without Remorse features an original character named Lt. Commander Karen Greer (Jodie Turner-Smith), who is the niece of Jim Greer. It’s a direct nod to the Jack Ryan side of Tom Clancy’s universe, although Greer is never seen and it’s never established which version of Greer Karen is related to. James Greer, who is Jack Ryan’s CIA mentor, was played by James Earl Jones in the films, although Morgan Freeman played a reworked version of Greer named William Cabot in The Sum of All Fears. Wendell Pierce plays James Greer in Amazon’s Jack Ryan series opposite John Krasinski. In Without Remorse, Karen serves a similar function for John Kelly as her uncle does for Jack Ryan; She’s his senior officer who supports him but questions his methods because she also has to answer to bureaucracy. Like Wendell Pierce’s Greer, Karen also backs John Kelly up in the field.

Without Remorse has another major Jack Ryan character who is rebooted for the film: Robert Ritter (Jamie Bell). In Tom Clancy’s novels, Ritter is CIA Deputy Director of Operations. Ritter appeared in Clear and Present Danger, where he was played by Henry Czerny, and he butted heads with Harrison Ford’s Jack Ryan. In Without Remorse, Ritter has been reimagined as a younger CIA agent who provides intel and backup field support for Lt. Commander Greer and John Kelly’s Navy SEALs unit. Bell’s version of Ritter is at odds with John Kelly in Without Remorse and he is apparently untrustworthy, but Ritter is also eager to use everything he knows to his advantage to climb the ladder in the CIA.

Since Without Remorse was originally slated as a movie franchise (and it sets up a sequel, Rainbow Six, starring Michael B. Jordan as John Clark), the intention was to keep it separate from Amazon’s Jack Ryan series. Meanwhile, Amazon’s Jack Ryan has their own version of John Clark played by John Hoogenaker who goes by the names Matice and Garth. Without Remorse certainly exists in a wider Jack Ryan cinematic universe, but unless a particular version of Ryan appears, it seems John Clark’s side of the franchise will keep the connection vague so there likely won’t be a team-up between John Clark and Jack Ryan like there was in Clear and Present Danger.

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