‘Reacher’ Gets Early Season 6 Renewal Shortly After Season 4 Wraps With 66M Viewers In 28 Days

Prime Video is picking up the pace on its Reacher renewals, handing its flagship drama starring Alan Ritchson a Season 6 pickup just 12 days after the Season 4 finale and four months after the early Season 5 order — the first time the show has received two renewals in the same year.

The expediency helps the series, developed by Nick Santora based on Lee Child’s books, to stay on an yearly cadence. Season 5, which already had been largely written at the time of the May green light, started production in late July in Toronto, ahead of Season 4’s Aug. 12 premiere. It is based on “Make Me,” the 20th book in Child’s series. It has not been determined yet which novel will serve as source material for Season 6. (Ritchson, who also is an executive producer on Reacher, recently revealed on social media that “Die Trying” is his favorite book in the franchise, and that “I had it approved until someone got re-elected”)

The renewal comes as Season 4 of Reacher has amassed 66 million viewers globally in its first 28 days on Prime Video, per Amazon, defying the recent downward streaming viewership trend by surpassing the Season 3 performance.

Seasons 2, 4 and 3 of Reacher (in that order) rank as the top 3 most-viewed returning seasons of all time on Prime Video, with Seasons 2 an 4 among the top 5 most-viewed seasons of any original series in the platform’s history alongside the first seasons of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and Fallout.

Per Amazon, more than half (58%) of Reacher’s Season 4 audience is based internationally, with outsized performance in the U.K., Germany, and Brazil.

The season has been big in the U.S. too; it just logged its fifth consecutive billion-minute weekly viewership tally on Nielsen’s weekly streaming rankings with 1.18 billion minutes, finishing No. 1 in four of the five weeks.

Additionally, Reacher has spawned a franchise with spinoff Neagley, starring Maria Sten, which is looking good for a Season 2 renewal.

“Reacher hits hard,” Peter Friedlander, Head of Global Television, Amazon MGM Studios, said. “What Lee Child has built and Nick Santora and his creative teams have brought to life is, simply, incredible. Alan Ritchson is Jack Reacher — he’s delivered a performance that has captivated audiences around the world. Together with our partners at Paramount Television Studios, we couldn’t be more excited to continue this journey. Reacher is a truly iconic series, and we’re thrilled to be on the ride with this extraordinary cast and crew for Season Six.”

Produced by Paramount Television Studios and Amazon MGM Studios, Reacher is written by Santora, who executive produces and serves as showrunner. In addition to Santora, Child and Ritchson, the list of executive producers include Don Granger, Scott Sullivan, Mick Betancourt, Lisa Kussner, Sam Hill, Amy Pocha & Seth Cohen.

In Season 4, based on Lee Child’s “Gone Tomorrow,” a chance encounter with a distraught stranger on a subway goes horribly wrong, drawing Jack Reacher (Ritchson) into a complex and deadly game that pits him against ruthless foes from the highest echelons of power. The season’s cast includes Chris Marquette, Sydelle Noel, Agnez Mo, Anggun, Kevin Weisman, Marc Blucas, Kevin Corrigan, and Kathleen Robertson.