In The Electric Mist is a 2009 sequel to Heaven’s Prisoners, where Tommy Lee Jones replaced Alec Baldwin as the main character Dave Robicheaux. Author Tom Clancy created the character of Jack Ryan, who has been played by actors like Ben Affleck and John Krasinski. The first performer to take up the mantle was Alec Baldwin, however, for the tense submarine thriller The Hunt For Red October. The movie paired Baldwin with screen icon Sean Connery and proved to be a major success in 1990.
Alec Baldwin was supposed to return for the next movie Patriot Games, but following disagreements he was replaced with Harrison Ford. Baldwin has largely eschewed sequels throughout his career in film, outside of occasional exceptions like Mission: Impossible – Fallout. That might be one reason he didn’t return as troubled detective David Robicheaux in 2009’s In The Electric Mist.
Dave Robicheaux comes from a series of thriller novels by author James Lee Burke. Like with Jack Ryan, Alec Baldwin was the first actor to play the character in 1996’s Heaven’s Prisoners. The story finds Robicheaux as a New Orleans cop who seeks out the people who murdered his wife, with his childhood best friend turned kingpin being a prime suspect. The movie had a great cast and was stylishly put together by director Phil Joanou (The Punisher: Dirty Laundry), but it proved to be a box-office dud. A sequel based on the book Dixie City Jam was mooted by failed to come together.
Robicheaux finally returned in 2009’s In The Electric Mist, based on Burke’s book In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead. The movie picks up with Robicheaux as a Sheriff Detective investigating the discovery of a skeleton, while a Hollywood crew is in town making a Civil War film. While it might be a follow-up to Heaven’s Prisoners and features a couple of returning characters, there’s little to tie the movies together. In The Electric Mist is a decent but forgettable thriller, but in spite of a cast that includes Tommy Lee Jones, John Goodman, and Kelly Macdonald (No Country For Old Men), it went straight to DVD in the U.S.
In The Electric Mist was helmed by Bertrand Tavernier, a French filmmaker who was excited to make an American noir thriller but found Tommy Lee Jones difficult to work with, and the film was later taken out of his hand by producers. Thankfully, he was later able to put together a director’s cut which restored over ten minutes of footage.