‘Reacher’ Creator Admits He Considered a Much Darker Ending for Jack Reacher

Jack Reacher has survived more gunfights, ambushes, and conspiracies than any action hero alive, not to mention superheroics after digging swimming pools — but according to creator Lee Child, his story almost ended years ago in a motel bathroom.

“It was going to be called Die Lonely,” Child revealed during a recent conversation. “The final scene was going to be Reacher bleeding to death on a filthy motel bathroom floor.” It’s a startling image — and one the author seriously considered as a full-stop to the multi-billion-dollar franchise he built from the ground up. And not one we’re particularly keen to see, if we’re honest. By 2019, after more than twenty novels and two decades of relentless output, Child had run out of gas. “When I started, I promised myself that if I ever sensed I was running out, I’d stop,” he said. “That was the only honest thing to do.”

How Will Jack Reacher Die?

Child imagined a brutally fitting farewell — Reacher taking a bullet for someone else, dying alone after saving yet another stranger. “It would have been a befitting end for a hero whose stock-in-trade is violence,” he said. “But killing him felt gratuitously cruel to the readers.”

Instead, Child drafted a symbolic ending. “Reacher would’ve solved the problem, headed for the bus station, then thought, Maybe I’ll rent a house, get a dog,” he said. “That would have been his metaphorical death.” But fans weren’t ready to let him go — and Child couldn’t bring himself to be that author who phoned it in just to keep the money flowing.

The author ultimately chose a different ending — not for Reacher, but for himself. After Blue Moon, the 24th book in the series, Child handed creative control to his younger brother Andrew Child, who now writes the novels under the shared pen name. “That was the biggest decision I’ve ever taken,” he admitted. “But it was time.”

Andrew’s first solo effort, In Too Deep, was released earlier this year, continuing the Reacher saga in a more modern world.

The franchise itself, though, has only grown. Prime Video’s Reacher, starring Alan Ritchson, has been a breakout hit for Amazon, adapting the novels with brutal precision and muscular charm. Ritchson’s portrayal — all quiet menace and moral conviction — has reignited global interest in the character, bringing in millions of new fans who first met Reacher on screen rather than on the page, and Jack Reacher is going to remain a living, breathing hero for some time to come.

Reacher streams on Prime Video.