Lee Child has confirmed he "exercised that veto" to reject a third Tom Cruise-starring Jack Reacher movie.

The 64-year-old actor starred as the former army police officer in Christopher McQuarrie's Jack Reacher in 2012 before reprising the role four years later in Edward Zwick's Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, and while the author was grateful for the new audience the films brought him, he knew he wanted to go in a different direction for future projects.

Lee explained to Collider: "I had a clause in that movie contract that after two movies I had a veto whether we would do any more. I exercised that veto.

"The deal was done in 2005, and it finished in a long, long time of development. Then the two movies finished in 2017. That first movie in particular was huge. It came out in December 2012. By January 2013, like one reporting cycle later, I had eight old paperbacks in the Top 10.

"You cannot buy that, and you cannot turn it down."

When time came to look at what was next, the TV landscape had changed and Lee welcomed the "fabulous luxury" of a streaming series that allowed much more time for storytelling, resulting in Prime Video's Reacher, which stars Alan Ritchson in the lead role.

Lee continued: "By 2017, of course, there was a whole new landscape. Binging television had been invented.

"Broadband was much more widespread. It was a thing now. It was not a thing in 2005. It hadn't been invented, and nobody, I think, now would ever go for a feature film over streaming television for two reasons.

"First of all, the running time - it's fabulous luxury. It really is. Eight hours, 10 hours, 12 hours, whatever you want. You can tell the whole story, all the light and shade, all the quiet parts, all the fun parts. It doesn't have to be rammed together for 90 minutes of content.

"The finances are totally different. With a feature film, the actor attracts the money. What actor is worth a $200 million investment?

"Whereas with television, the platform pays it, and you can have anybody. You can have total unknowns.

"The star on television doesn't really attract either the audience or the money, and so we had a completely free hand for casting."

Before Season 4 of Reacher premiered on Prime Video in August, it was renewed for a fifth season in May. And when Season 4 brought in 66 million viewers globally in its first 28 days, a sixth season was ordered.