A Disappointing Update About ‘Reacher’ Season 4’s Release Date

Alan Ritchson made news a few days ago when he was seen at a Cubs game next to his Reacher co-star, Maria Sten, aka Neagley.

The two were not just taking in a casual game, they were filming a show. But not the show you’re thinking about, but rather Sten’s Reacher spin-off show, Neagley. The fans in the shot were all actors as well, you’re not going to be able to control random Cubs fans and you’d have to get all of them to sign releases.

The fact that this is Neagley being shot, not Reacher season 4, creates an exhausting update for its upcoming release date. Reacher has not even started filming yet, and Ritchson says they’re just starting stunts and picking out his wardrobe (usually one outfit he wears all season).

If Reacher isn’t filming yet and season 3 ended a little while back, where does that leave Reacher season 4’s potential release date.

If we’re being generous, let’s say Reacher season 4 starts filming July 1. With that, we can extrapolate out the past few seasons’ timelines. Here are the release dates.

• Reacher season 1: February 2022
• Reacher season 2: December 2023
• Reacher season 3: February 2025

Reacher season 3 started filming in November 2023. Production wrapped in 2024 ahead of its February 2025 release date. So with filming and postproduction, that’s 15 months. And 15 months from July 1, the estimated filming start date, that takes us to October 2026 for a release date. That’s 21 months between seasons, or nearly two years. That’s 6 months longer than the gap between seasons 2 and 3. Not great.

The idea here is that Neagley is supposed to work as a stop-gap, the spin-off focused on the side-character with Reacher clearly making a guest appearance, as we’ve seen at this recent Cubs game. Amazon has been setting this concept up for a while now, making sure Neagley is in every season, including season 3 where she was not in the book being adapted. And there are no Neagley-specific books, so they’re going to be making things up as they go for this one.

I think everyone is very tired of 1.5-3-year gaps between streaming seasons at this point, and it appears Reacher is going to be no exception with its spacing only getting longer.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.