The Hollywood Reporter‘s Borys Kit is reporting that Anthony Peckham has been tapped to re-write Paramount’s Jack Ryan reboot. Previously written by Adam Cozad, pic is reportedly an origin story with Chris Pine as Ryan and Lost’s Jack Bender directing. No offense but this hiring strikes me as a downmarket move — an aesthetic tilt that could lead to a dilution of the Ryan brand.

Peckham’s screenplays for Sherlock Holmes and The Book of Eli are dismissable offenses in my book. Holmes was glib horseshit — it was my idea of torture — and Peckham was a key architect of that painful modernist bromance shtick.

And that expression on his face in the above photo…good God. You’re not supposed to evaluate writers by their appearances but look at him. Reddish tennis-ball haircut, beard, hoo-hoo grin. Is this the face of someone who intuitively gets the DNA of the Jack Ryan world? He looks like an adrenalized nerd who works in a cubicle, some guy who irritates Rainn Wilson in The Office.

Previous Ryan franchise screenwriters have loftier pedigrees, or at least the rep of having written films with a certain gravity and coolness, that are way, way above Peckham’s level.

Sum of All Fears screenwriter Daniel Pyne wrote White Sands, Any Given Sunday and the remake of The Manchurian Candidate, and his Sum collaborator Paul Attanasio had written Quiz Show, Disclosure and Donnie Brasco.

Clear and Present Danger co-writer Donald Stewart wrote Missing. Steven Zallian, who wrote (and re-wrote) major portions of this 1994 Ryan thriller, had written Schindler’s List, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Awakenings and The Falcon and the Snowman. And the resume of Clear and Present Danger co-writer John Milius (Apocalypse Now, Conan the Barbarian, Red Dawn) speaks for itself.

Stewart also co-wrote Patriot Games along with Peter Iliff (Point Break, Prayer of the Rollerboys), and co-wrote The Hunt for Red October with Larry Ferguson (Alien 3, The Presidio, Beverly Hills Cop II).