Alan Ritchson's New John Wick Meets Reacher Streaming Hit Confirms He's The Best Stallone & Arnie Replacement

Sep 02, 2026 - 01:14

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Alan Ritchson's New John Wick Meets Reacher Streaming Hit Confirms He's The Best Stallone & Arnie Replacement

Published Sep 1, 2026, 5:20 PM EDT

Sky Blanton is a Movie Contributor at ScreenRant with professional experience covering movies, television, and pop culture. Her published work spans news, interviews, features, and opinion pieces, with a focus on film, franchise storytelling, and the entertainment industry.

She earned her bachelor's degree in Communications with a concentration in Professional Writing and a minor in Business Writing from Southern New Hampshire University.

Alan Ritchson was born too late to be one of the action stars who dominated the 1980s, but Motor City makes a pretty convincing case that he could have fit right in. The movie gives him the sort of role that once made stars like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger so magical. Ritchson has the size for these roles, but more importantly, he knows how to make John Miller feel like a person rather than a bag of muscles.

That becomes more apparent because the movie takes away one of the easiest tools an actor has. John barely speaks in Motor City. Director Potsy Ponciroli tells much of the story through music, editing, atmosphere, and bursts of nasty, close-quarters violence, leaving Ritchson to sell John's anger and determination largely through his face and body language. It is a strange approach for a $30 million action movie, and that is exactly what makes it so fun. Motor City builds the entire movie around what he can do without saying much at all.

Alan Ritchson's Motor City Deserves Its Success on VOD

Alan Ritchson standing in front of bars with a tense expression on his face in Motor City

The theatrical release numbers were brutal. Motor City made roughly $2.7 million worldwide against its $30 million budget, but its August 25 digital release is giving it the kind of second chance that suits this movie far better. It has already reached number 15 on Prime Video's U.S. top movies chart, where viewers can rent it to watch for $19.99.

That makes sense once you actually watch the movie. Motor City is not asking audiences to keep up with sprawling lore or wait through an hour of setup before Ritchson gets to cut loose. John Miller is betrayed, imprisoned, and eventually comes after the men who destroyed his life. The story is deliberately lean, and Ponciroli fills the space with grimy Detroit locations, a pounding rock soundtrack, and some wonderfully excessive action.

Ben Foster also gives Ritchson the kind of opponent the movie needs. Foster plays the gangster responsible for John's downfall with the sort of twitchy menace that makes their eventual confrontation personal, rather than merely functional. Shailene Woodley rounds out the cast, but this is unmistakably Ritchson's movie. Everything keeps coming back to John, whether he is silently staring down an enemy or throwing himself into another vicious fight.

Alan Ritchson Is This Decade's Version Of A 1980s Action Star

Alan Ritchson looking at himself in the mirror in Motor City

Ritchson is so fitting because he seems to not be embarrassed by the simplicity of this kind of premise. Motor City has no interest in making John witty enough to deliver a quip every 30 seconds or giving him some elaborate superhero-based origin story. Ritchson can walk into a room, look enormous, and make the audience understand exactly what is about to happen. That is a skill, and modern movies do not use it nearly enough.

His pairing with Schwarzenegger in The Man With The Bag feels like a great fit as well. Schwarzenegger plays Santa Claus, while Ritchson plays Vance, a former thief recruited to recover Santa's stolen magic sack. It is obviously a much lighter movie than Motor City, but seeing Ritchson share a screen with one of the defining action stars of the previous generation makes the comparison hard to ignore.

Ritchson will never literally be Schwarzenegger or Stallone, and trying to make him their replacement missed what is interesting about who he is personally. Alan Ritchson is building his own version of that kind of career at a time when Hollywood rarely makes movies like Motor City anymore. Its theatrical failure is disappointing, but the VOD response is encouraging because it means this kind of stripped-down, star-driven action movie still has an audience. More importantly, it suggests Ritchson is exactly the kind of actor who can keep it alive.