The Terminal List Meets Jack Ryan In Gerard Butler's Returning Action Franchise

Gerard Butler’s biggest action franchise is returning soon, and the latest outing looks like a cross between Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan and The Terminal List. It must be said that Gerard Butler action movies are truly a thing of wonder. In the past decade and change, the Scottish actor has quietly become one of the most reliable sources of well-made, guilty-pleasure actioners.

The Has Fallen trilogy might be a mixed bag overall, but they also cemented his action star status. Den of Thieves is be a B-movie riff on Heat, but it’s oh so much fun, and gave Butler one of his most fun characters in rule-bending cop “Big” Nick. Elsewhere on his CV, Copshop and Plane are a guaranteed fun night’s entertainment.

Sadly, if you were expecting Butler to cameo in TV spinoff Paris Has Fallen, you were mistaken. Instead, this 2024 series followed two new protagonists, Vincelt (Tewfik Jallab) and Zara (Ritu Arya), as they dealt with a terrorist threat to the French capital. While Butler’s Mike Banning was missed, the chemistry between Arya and Jallab helped Paris Has Fallen stand on its own two feet.

Now, the trailer for the new season, Apollo Has Fallen, has dropped, and bares a passing resemblance to military action shows like The Terminal List. There are definite shades of 24 and Jack Ryan in there too, as Vincent and Zara do some globe-hopping to stop another terrorist event.

Apollo Has Fallen Looks Like A Soft Reboot Of The Action Franchise

What’s exciting about Apollo Has Fallen is that it almost looks like a different show. The same lead characters are returning, but the tone and scope are totally different. Season one had plenty of action, but it was more of a conspiracy thriller in the Jack Ryan mold. Apollo… catches up with Vincent and Zara in the fallout from season one, and they almost appear to be acting as mercenaries in this new season.

Sunkissed locales like Malta also give it a different feel to Paris Has Fallen. In a way, this mirrors the film franchise too. Olympus Has Fallen was a siege movie set inside the White House, while its immediate sequel London Has Fallen upped the scale considerably by placing the British capital itself under siege.

Ritu Arya played Journalist Barbie in 2023’s Barbie movie.

Apollo Has Fallen was right to shake things up, though time will tell if it’s as much fun as the original series proved to be. One thing the next outing is missing is Sean Harris as Jacob Pearce, the mastermind behind the Paris attacks. Harris made for an extremely compelling and oddly sympathetic villain, so hopefully, the new season will have another worthy foe for Zara and Vincent to face.

The Status Of Gerard Butler’s Next Has Fallen Movie Is Still Unknown

After the success of the third instalment, Angel Has Fallen, another sequel seemed like a given. That said, Butler’s Banning looked ready to retire from his action hero days, as years of injuries had begun to catch up with him. Even so, a fourth entry titled Night Has Fallen was announced in 2020, though work was later put on pause when Butler and Millennium Media/Nu Image got into a lawsuit over profits from the first film.

This was later settled, but it appears work on Night Has Fallen has ceased. It’s not like Butler is hurting for employment currently, so there’s a decent chance another Mike Banning adventure might not happen. That would be a shame, as it would be nice to see the movie saga and Banning himself getting a proper finale.

In truth, the only logical place another Has Fallen film could go is to make Banning himself the President, and have him acting as a politician whilst also kicking ass. Having President Banning cameo in Apollo Has Fallen would be a cool way to set this up, but while Butler is stll involved with the spinoff as producer, there is no sign of him returning as Banning in the immediate future.