Amazon is going all in on the Dad Market. The streaming service is already five seasons deep with Bosch, and two seasons into Jack Ryan, but it wants more. Jack Reacher is in development already, and now so is Alex Cross.
Variety reports that James Patterson’s Alex Cross novels are being developed into a television series at Amazon. Forensic psychologist Alex Cross first debuted in 1990 and is still going strong 30 years later. The most recent novel, the twenty-ninth installment, was released in 2019.
Prior to this news, the character had been adapted to film three times: Kiss the Girls (1997), Along Came a Spider (2001), and Alex Cross (2012). However, despite starring Morgan Freeman or Tyler Perry in the lead role, the films were never critical or box office successes.
But in the Streaming Wars era, services are desperate for original content. That’s when all eyes go to book series with established fan bases. Twenty-nine novels is a lot of material that can be mined for multiple seasons of content. It’s worked for Amazon in the past with Bosch and Jack Ryan, and they’re probably betting that it will work again. If not, they still have their Lord of the Rings series to fall back on.
Have you read Alex Cross before? Would you watch the TV show? Do you think Amazon needs to crossover Bosch, Ryan, Cross, and Reacher for an epic six-part event series? I’d watch it. Would you?
