Kevin Costner Popular Again, Offered Roles as Jack Ryan's Mentor, Dying Assassin
The checks still not coming in from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Kevin Costner is looking at some other jobs to pay for the next batch of Kevin Costner & The Modern West ringer tees.
The actor, who next appears as Superman's adoptive father in Man of Steel, is reportedly in talks to finally join the Jack Ryan franchise he famously passed on over two decades ago when he decided he'd rather make Dances with Wolves than The Hunt for Red October. Aptly, he'd be playing a mentor role in the new film, recruiting Chris Pine's Jack Ryan and teaching him to be all Jack Ryan-y. The part is said to be similar to the James Greer role played by James Earl Jones across three films, but Deadline notes that it has been made clear that it is not that part, as the studio hopes to somehow make sense of a now-octogenarian Jones into this prequel too. Kenneth Branagh is directing the film, and is in talks to play a villain that enacts a malicious plan to devalue U.S. currency. Tom Clancy characters, Kevin Costner, AND discussions about the value of a dollar! Dad is going to love this.
Meanwhile, Costner is also reportedly being courted for the lead in Three Days to Kill, an action-thriller with a script from Adi Hasak and Luc Besson. Like Besson's Taken, the film focuses on an aging father/badass, and would see Costner playing a terminally-ill government assassin who decides to take one last job, and reconcile with his daughter, before he dies in a few days. McG is looking at the project as his post-This Means War return to the world of government agents with hearts of gold.
