Amazon is developing a series based on the Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child in what could lead to a potentially big franchise for the tech giant's Prime Video platform.


The streamer landed the rights after competitive bidding. The project is in development under a script-to-series deal, with Scorpion creator Nick Santora set to adapt the books — which have sold more than 100 million copies and been translated into 49 languages — about a military veteran who lives a nomadic life as a freelance investigator and problem-solver.


Amazon Studios will produce along with Skydance Television and Paramount Television. The three companies are also behind Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, another Amazon drama based on a best-selling series of novels.


Child's series has been adapted for two movies starring Tom Cruise, 2012's Jack Reacher and 2016's Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote and directed the first film and was a producer on the sequel, is among the executive producers on the Amazon project.


Santora — who also is attached to two series for the shortform streamer Quibi — will serve as showrunner and exec produce with Child, Don Granger and McQuarrie. Skydance's David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Marcy Ross are also exec producers. Carolyn Harris is overseeing the project for Skydance.


The Jack Reacher project is the latest potential series based on a book series to land at Amazon. Prime Video's longest-running original show, Bosch, is based on Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch novels, and Jack Ryan has been renewed for a third season well ahead of its (as yet unscheduled) season two premiere. The streamer is mounting a mega-budgeted adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings works (set before the three LOTR novels) and a series based on the best-selling Wheel of Time series that will star Rosamund Pike.


Amazon's other originals include Emmy darling The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Boys, Carnival Row, The Expanse, Fleabag, Goliath, Hanna, The Hunt, Invincible and a recently ordered comedy from Tracy Oliver and Amy Poehler, among numerous others.