Jack Ryan

Short Answer: Adapt the rest of the books

There is no reason that Jack Ryan should not be as big a name as Jason Bourne, John Wick, Jack Reacher, or Ethan Hunt.

And, in a way, he's not really their competitor. Bourne, an agent, is all about hand-to-hand. Wick, a hitman, is all about gunplay. Ethan Hunt is all about stunts. Reacher was former Army, and is not really as famous as these others; he only has two movies.

Ryan, meanwhile, is not as much about fighting and fight senes. He's more about intrigue, unraveling plots and schemes, and tension/suspense. All these things are in all these movies, sure-- but it's about proportion. In those other series, action is more like 70% of why people go to see them. For Ryan, it's maybe 50% or less of what's going on; his movies are more like police procedurals or mysteries, with an action element. (For even more mystery and less action, you want Alex Cross. For closer to 80% action, you want John McClane.)

Also, Jack Ryan is a legacy brand. The Hunt for Red October, the first movie to come out, dropped in 1990. The character has been played by many more people over the years-- A-listers like Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, and Chris Pine-- than those other roles. It's really in this way that the character is most like Bond. Aside from working for their governments, they don't have anything else in common; Ryan doesn't use sci-fi gadgets, or fall into bed with every female agent he runs across, or drink all day, or gamble all night... 

M:I's TV show, Treadstone, lasted 10 episodes; its original show, upon which the movies are based, ran from 1966-73. But the Cruise-as-Hunt movies started in 2000, 10 years after Ryan's, so for many viewers, he's a newer character. Also Ryan's 2018 show is at 2 seasons and counting, and the character is not a Boomer like Hunt but a "90's kid." 

The others? From a feature-film standpoint, they are also 21st Century babies. Bourne's novels started in the 1980s, but the first movie didn't drop until 2002 (it had one TV movie, in 1988). Jack Reacher's first novel was released in 1997, but the first movie didn't come out until 2012. John Wick is even newer; his character was not novel-based and so he first appeared in his 2014 movie. Eggsy Unwin also debuted that year, in the Kingsman series. 

Which, again, makes Jack Ryan the cinematic daddy of all of them (if not granddaddy-- that'd be Bond. While Martin Riggs and John McClane are... maybe their older uncles?). 

In any case, there is plenty of life left in the Jack Ryan character. And plenty of material to work with. As with several of these others, Ryan was "born" in a series of books. And, as with others, not all the books have been movie-fied yet. 

In Ryan's case, there are Without Remorse (technically a Ryan prequel; he's not even in it), Red Rabbit, The Cardinal of the Kremlin, Debt of Honor, Executive Orders, Rainbow Six, The Bear and the Dragon and other that have not yet been adapted for movies.

I mean...there are 34 books in the series! Even if you only count the ones credited to Tom Clancy alone, that's 14 books-- only 4 of which have been adapted, plus 4 with a co-author. So that's 10-14 more plotlines already gamed out. My pick would be Cardinal, the only one of the first 5 books not yet turned into a movie. Red Rabbitt, in which Ryan joins the CIA to begin with, is another solid choice.

And that's without getting into the Jack Ryan, Jr. books, which would give both older and younger viewers someone on screen to identify with. 

Since the character has already been played by many others, it's totally acceptable-- even expected-- to recast the role yet again. Chris Evans-- maybe with his hair darkened-- could work. He's done with the MCU (unless there is more time-travel afoot), but he also might not want to be locked into another series. 

Ryan Gosling would also work. Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale, Channing Tatum, Oscar Isaac... there are enough granite-jawed actors who can still convincingly do action scenes in their 40s. As some of the yet-unadapted books take place earlier in the Ryan timeline, or involve Jr.,  we can get some 20- and 30-something actors some time in this series, also.

Let the future Patriot Games begin!