Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, while doing the promotional rounds for his G.I. Joe movie, was recently put on the spot by MTV Movies about the fate of the next Jack Ryan movie, which had been rumoured as a potential future project for George Clooney. Thus far, four Ryan films - based loosely on their respective Tom Clancy novels - have made it to the screen, with three actors in the lead role. The Hunt For Red October gave us Alec Baldwin and Sean Connery's marvellously Scottish-yet-Russian submarine captain ("Comradesh, we shail into hishtory"), while Patriot Games and Clear And Present Danger handed the Ryan part to the distinctly older Harrison Ford. Then around came the reboot, in came Ben Affleck, and The Sum Of All Fears was the end result.

There's a common thread linking all of the Ryan movies to date, however, and that's that they're all good. Even those who usually write off Mr Affleck in a lead role might be surprised by just how strong The Sum Of All Fears is, but the actor's subsequent acting career choices all but killed his chances of returning to the land of Ryan.

Which is where George Clooney came in. He'd been reportedly interested in playing Ryan, although if anything he strikes us a more of a James Bond charmer than a boy scout politician Ryan. Still, with Paramount keen to have a Bourne-esque franchise of its own (and a cheaper one than Mission: Impossible), Lorenzo di Bonaventura has confirmed that a script has now been submitted to the studio for a new movie, and that it was "well-received and it's in the process".

However, he's also nixed the idea that Clooney could be Ryan, instead telling MTV, "It's not written for a man of his age. It's written for a guy in his early 30s." Sadly, we could have seen that one coming, and that now makes the Ryan character younger than he was in The Sum Of All Fears (which was effectively the genesis story as to how he got involved in the CIA in the first place). Expect Shia LaBoeuf to be getting a phone call, would be our guess.

We wonder just what the fear is of casting an older actor in something like this. Surely the world would have little problem believing that a 50+ operative could save the world too? This could still, of course, be a masterstroke by all concerned, but the Ryan films at least felt like grown up action movies, and we can but hope that ethos is kept at the core of things. Else where will all this lead? Jack Ryan Jr?

We say: give Harrison Ford another shot, and move the character on accordingly. That's a film we'd like to see...

MTV