By Jonathan Klotz
| Updated
Tom Clancy is no longer with us, but his extensive novel series of military fiction, centered on CIA analyst Jack Ryan and Special Forces operative John Clark, continues to be a gold mine for Hollywood adaptations. The Hunt for Red October is the best submarine movie of the last 40 years, Patriot Games was one of Harrison Ford’s best action movies of the 90s, and John Krasinski’s Amazon series, Jack Ryan, is a smash hit. Notably absent to longtime Clancy fans is that one of his best novels has yet to be adapted. It’s been almost 30 years, and there’s still no Rainbow Six adaptation.
Rainbow Six Is A Hit Waiting To Happen
Before Rainbow Six became a wildly successful video game series, it was Tom Clancy’s 11th novel, and in the Clancyverse, this was like the Avengers getting together. The elite counterterrorism unit Rainbow, named because it was comprised of the best of the best from NATO member countries, was formed as a rapid response strike force. Led by John Clarke and his son-in-law, Domingo “Ding” Chavez, they stopped a bank robbery, a hostage situation, and took out a secret cabal of the global elite. All in one book.
Amazon teased fans with the establishment of Rainbow during Jack Ryan Season 4. Michael Pena, as “Ding” Chavez, was clearly being set up as the team’s field leader. Michael B. Jordan was already established as the new John Clark in the streaming adaptation of Without Remorse, and though he’s significantly younger then the Clark of the novels at the point Rainbow is established, he’s Michael B. Jordan, he’d kill in the role. As with so many backdoor pilots over the years, it would seem Amazon has quietly killed the Rainbow Six spin-off.
Amazon Can’t Commit To The Clancyverse
Instead of giving fans the adaptation they want, Amazon produced the streaming movie Jack Ryan: Ghost War, a continuation of the series that ended in 2023. It’s a shadow of what the series was, and wastes Krasinski’s performance, but it was also meant to be a feature film release. In theaters that is, instead of debuting on Amazon Prime. That’s a sign of the problem at Amazon that’s keeping the world from experiencing Rainbow Six.
In order to figure out what Amazon wants to do with the Clancyverse, fans may need the services of Rainbow’s psychologist, Dr. Paul Bellow, who’s so good at his job the members of Rainbow think he may be a mind reader. Does Amazon want to make more series, feature films, or streaming movies? Rainbow Six was going to be a series, and then retooled into a movie, then there was no news for months.
The closest fans have to a status update is from Michael Pena. When asked by fans, Pena alluded to rights issues with some of the characters, including “Ding” Chavez, as to why the adaptation wasn’t moving forward. Rainbow Six was a best-selling novel, a blockbuster video game series still going today, and it would be perfect for a series or a movie, but pick one. Fans have waited over 30 years to see the Basque terrorists realize they made a horrible mistake at the amusement park, and the Horizon Corporation is the perfect villain in 2026.
Until Amazon figures out what it’s doing, you can binge Jack Ryan again, run through Harrison Ford’s 90s films, and if you have to, check out Ben Affleck’s take on Jack Ryan in The Sum of All Fears.
