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Jay Baruchel made his name in comedy and animated work such as starring in the How to Train Your Dragon animated movie, and then roles in the live-action Knocked Up and Tropic Thunder. But he was primed to make a big turn opposite the walking action hero that is Alan Ritchson in the fourth season of Prime Video's hit series Reacher. Baruchel's casting was announced 13 days ago, but now a sudden change - Baruchel is out, and his Fanboys co-star Christopher Rodriguez-Marquette is in.

What happened?

Baruchel was set to play a small-town policeman named Jacob Merrick in what Deadline says is a "meaty" role for the project, but shortly after his casting was announced, a "personal matter" came up for the actor which led to his resignation from the project. We hope everything's okay for him.

Based on reporting from Deadline, this all went down sometime in the past two weeks - and by the time this recasting was reported, the new actor is already on set as filming is already underway.

That new actor is Christopher Rodriguez-Marquette, best-known (to me at least) for his co-starring role in CBS's Joan of Arcadia, and more recently on HBO's Barry. That said, the actor also co-starred in 2009's Fanboys, opposite Jay Baruchel.

Although there's been no Reacher season 4 release date announced, based on the pace of previous seasons, we expect this to debut sometime in 2027.

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