The continuing saga of Lee Child character 'Jack Reacher' and Mr Tom Cruise

There is a massive debate still going on at http://www.murderati.com/blog/ on a comments board in reply to a blog /rant written by Best selling author Alexandra Sokoloff.  It really is quite unbelievably sad that people who purport to love an authors output are threatening to stop buying his books because of the possibility that Tom Cruise MAY or MAY not play the lead character in a film adaptation of one of his novels.  As I said in my previous blog on this subject, Mr Cruise would not be my first choice to portray this character, but at the end of the day IT IS NOT MY CHOICE THAT COUNTS.  

I, like the other readers I suspect, of books by any author,  choose to read them because they have been personally recommended to us, or as is the case with my most recent favourite author  Michael R Hicks where I have stumbled across them and then I buy every book he has written, and read them in the space of a week.  That was 6 books by the way and to tell the truth I am alternating between No 6 and a another couple of books I have on the go at the moment.  But my point is I love the books and the characters IN THE BOOKS.  I do not think there is any book that I have read, where I have seen a movie representation of it first and then decided to read the book afterwards.  The books are always, always a much more fuller and descriptive laden piece of literary work than any movie can ever hope to be.  

So all of this talk about boycotting the author really is leaving me rather perplexed especially when you consider, and I can't state this for fact as I am not an author, but I would think that someone who sits down and produces a book for people like us, do it for a couple of reasons, not least of all by the fact that they all seem to have such amazing abilities to put together and relate a well written story that devlops in their mind and is just begging their inner self to be placed onto paper, or kindle or e reader, choose your own format here.  And I'll bet while they are sitting there in the middle of the night hammering away at their keyboard the last thing they are thinking about is a) am I going to have a best seller on my hands and b) I wonder who is going to play the lead in the movie of this book.  Well maybe one or two of them do, but I suspect not a lot of them do.

So, when they are fortunate enough to actually then get published and people like you and I pick them up and and we are then joined by hundreds of thousands of others around the world, good luck to them I say, I wish it was me (and envy of your favourite authors is not a bad thing either).  Is it any wonder then when a movie deal does come along that that same author is going to grab it with both hands, of course it is not, so stop being so naive  in all of this and give the guy a break.

I will say it again about Mr Cruise, he is not my first choice, and I don't care that he leaps over sofas and jumps around like a loon proclaiming his love for a woman, I suspect most women would also love their man to do something just as daft from time to time, wouldn't yours?  There is also mention of his attachment to Scientology, who cares, I can't recall him ever trying to convert me to it, so what has that got to do with it.

And this is what I said on the Murderati site earlier this evening about his height [although I still think he is wrong for the part, but I don't really care enough to be bothered by it]

"Me again. I really am quite dumbfounded by all of this. Reminds me a little bit of the furore that surrounded Dan Brown and the Da Vinci Code except in that storm it was the church and other organisations vilifying the author.

Now as I said earlier, as a reader of all the Jack Reacher Novels I am not too impressed with the idea of TC playing the part, but as a reader of a book I will not be offended by him if he does. I will wait and see. But it will not make me stop seeing MY Jack Reacher.

Now, everyone is on about TC's size and by the fact that he will not be menacing enough. 

I do not know what age most of you are but I am 55. So when I was growing up in the 60's and all the old black and white movies were on the telly here in the UK I can recall feeling menaced and intimidated every time Edward G Robinson at 5 feet, or James Cagney at 5 feet 5 or Humphrey Bogart at 5 feet 8 popped up on screen and so did the characters in the scene with them. I think they call it acting, but I'm not sure!

And if I watch any of those old movies today at 55, those characters are still just as intimidating and seem to fill the screen."

Best Wishes