‘Jack Reacher: Never Go Back’ Cast, Updates: New Official Trailer Debuts Featuring Tom Cruise in Action; Cobie Smulders Talks Role as Susan Turner

‘Jack Reacher: Never Go Back’, otherwise known as ‘Jack Reacher 2’, recently unveiled its official trailer featuring the return of Tom Cruise in the titular role.  Meanwhile, co-star Cobie Smulders talked about her role as Susan Turner in the sequel.

According to Collider, Paramount Pictures recently dropped the new trailer for director Edward Zwick’s upcoming action-adventure and crime film featuring Cruise in the lead role as the tough ex-military cop Jack Reacher. It is the sequel to the 2012 live-action adaptation of Lee Child’s 2005 novel ‘One Shot’, which was directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie of ‘Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation’ fame.

The original film received generally positive reviews from critics and performed relatively well at the North American box office upon its release on December 2012. According to Box Office Mojo, McQuarrie’s film earned $80 million at the domestic box office and $138.27 million at the foreign box office. It received $218.34 million worldwide on a production budget of $60 million.

The sequel’s trailer featured more action-packed sequences of Cruise fighting bad guys together with new leading lady Cobie Smulders. Smulders is set to portray Susan Turner, a member of the military equipped with Ranger training.

The 34-year old Canadian actress and model gained international fame for her role on CBS’ popular sitcom ‘How I Met Your Mother’. She went on to star in Marvel’s ‘The Avengers’ as Maria Hill and became a prominent figure in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) after appearing in sequels ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ and ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’.

During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Smulders talked about her new role in a more grounded action film as Susan. She teased some details on Susan and Jack’s relationship saying, “These are two people who don’t have much time to date… They started a relationship just by being friendly and helping each other out, and that blossomed into more. Reacher decides to seek out Turner, and maybe ask her out.”

She continued, “It’s an interesting dynamic between these two characters, who are so used to being alone and being in charge. Now they have to work together. Initially, that goes horribly wrong, and they have to reconfigure themselves.”

Smulders explained that the appearance of Jack’s daughter played by Danika Yarosh of ‘Heroes Reborn’ fame shifts the dynamics between Susan and Jack. She said, “So now we’re in this weird family dynamic. My character did not ask to be saddled with this type of responsibility, and so there’s a constant clashing of ideas. At the same time, they’re all being hunted, all being chased.” 

‘Jack Reacher: Never Go Back’ is an upcoming action-crime film scheduled to premiere in theaters on October 21, 2016. It is directed by Edward Zwick and written by Zwick, Richard Wenk, and Marshall Herskovitz. It is produced by Paramount Pictures, Skydance Productions, and TC Productions.