The Sum of All Fears (1991 novel, Tom Clancy)

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Lore & Background

The source material does not provide details about the novel's lore beyond the plot summary. The novel was adapted into a 2002 film directed by Phil Alden Robinson. The film is a reboot of the Jack Ryan franchise, set in 2002, with Ben Affleck portraying a younger Jack Ryan compared to previous films starring Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford. The film was a co-production between Paramount Pictures, Mace Neufeld Productions, MFP Munich Film Partners, and S.O.A.F. Productions. It premiered in the United States on May 31, 2002, and received mixed reviews from critics but was a financial success, with a worldwide theatrical run of $193.9 million against a production budget of $68 million and related marketing costs. The original motion picture soundtrack was released on June 4, 2002, by Elektra Records, composed and orchestrated by Jerry Goldsmith.

In Their Own Story

In 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, an Israeli warplane carrying a nuclear bomb crashes. In 2002, Ghazi, a Syrian scrap collector, recovers the bomb from a field in the Golan Heights. He sells it to South African black market arms trafficker Derek Olson, who resells it to a neo-Nazi group led by Austrian billionaire Richard Dressler. The group's aim is to start a war between the United States and Russia that will devastate them both, leaving a united fascist Europe to rule the world. CIA analyst Jack Ryan is summoned by Director William Cabot to accompany him to Moscow to meet new Russian President Alexander Nemerov. There, Cabot and Ryan are allowed to examine a Russian nuclear weapons facility as prescribed by the START treaty, where Ryan notices the absence of three scientists listed on the facility's roster. After receiving intelligence from "Spinnaker", an informant inside the Kremlin, Cabot sends operative John Clark to investigate. Clark tracks the scientists to a former Soviet military facility in Ukraine, where Cabot suspects they are building a nuclear weapon that Russia could use untraceably; Russian and U.S. relations are strained due to Russia's war in Chechnya. Ryan and his colleagues discern that a crate from the Ukraine facility was flown to the Canary Islands, then sent to Baltimore on a cargo ship. Ryan warns Cabot, who is attending a football game in the city with U.S. President Robert Fowler. Fowler is evacuated before the bomb detonates, but the stadium is destroyed and Cabot is mortally wounded. Worsening matters, a corrupt Russian Air Force general paid by Dressler sends warplanes to attack a U.S. aircraft carrier, leading the U.S. to believe that Russia perpetrated the nuclear bombing. Fowler orders a nuclear strike on Russia. Ryan learns from a radiation assessment team that the isotopic signature from the nuclear blast indicates that the bomb was manufactured in the U.S., which seems to exonerate Russia. In Syria, Clark tracks down Ghazi, now dying of radiation exposure. He tells Clark that he sold the bomb to Olson, who lives in Damascus. Ryan's colleagues at Langley infiltrate Olson's computer and download files that implicate Dressler as the person behind the explosion. Ryan is able to reach the National Military Command Center in The Pentagon and get a message to Nemerov, saying that he knows that Russia was not behind the attack, while also asking him to unilaterally stand down his forces as a show of good faith. Nemerov agrees to do so as Fowler follows suit. The attack's perpetrators, including Olson and Dressler, are assassinated. Fowler and Nemerov announce new measures to counter nuclear proliferation in joint speeches at the White House, as Ryan and his fiancée Dr. Catherine Muller listen in. Spinnaker, who is revealed to be Nemerov's senior advisor Anatoli Grushkov, gives Catherine a gift for their engagement, despite them having told no one the news.

Reader's Guide

The source material does not provide a guide section for the novel. The 2002 film adaptation was directed by Phil Alden Robinson and starred Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan. The film was a co-production between Paramount Pictures, Mace Neufeld Productions, MFP Munich Film Partners, and S.O.A.F. Productions. It premiered in theaters in the United States on May 31, 2002, and received mixed reviews from critics, but was a financial success, having a worldwide theatrical run of $193.9 million compared to its production budget of $68 million and related marketing costs. On June 4, 2002, the original motion picture soundtrack was released by Elektra Records, composed and orchestrated by musician Jerry Goldsmith.

Did You Know?

• The film adaptation changed the terrorists from Arab nationalists (as in the novel) to neo-Nazis, a decision made before the September 11, 2001 attacks, as filming finished in June 2001.
• Tom Clancy jokingly introduced himself on the DVD commentary as 'the author of the book that he [director Phil Alden Robinson] ignored' and spent most of the commentary poking fun at the film's factual inaccuracies and differences from the source material.
• The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) mounted a two-year lobbying campaign that ended on January 26, 2001, against using 'Muslim villains' as the original book version did.
• Principal photography began on February 12, 2001, in Montreal, Quebec, with the football game sequences shot at Olympic Stadium and additional filming at the Diefenbunker in Ottawa, Ontario.
• The Pentagon disliked a scene where a carrier was blown up due to the impression they believed it gave, so the scene was rewritten.