Following The Bourne Ultimatum, the Matt Damon-starring franchise went through something of a creative spasm, with different possible scripts in play and Paul Greengrass deciding he didn’t want to direct whatever film would come next. That led to Matt Damon pulling his own eject cord, but not before he approached a certain Jonah Nolan to see if he could figure out a way to keep the series going.
Talking to Deadline about his latest, Promised Land, Damon was naturally asked about the future of the Bourne franchise and his possible involvement. Which led to the Nolan revelation.
“We just don’t have a story, and we haven’t had one,” he says. “I quietly went to Jonah Nolan, because he and his brother Chris did such a brilliant job on Batman and that whole mythology. I just said, ‘Can you put your brain on this? I can’t figure it out.’ And he took a run at it and he couldn’t crack it either. Paul and I have been talking about it for years. And we can’t quite see what the movie would be. If we could get line of sight on that...”
While the Bourne universe ticked on with Jeremy Renner and The Bourne Legacy, Damon and Greengrass are still happy to come back, but only for the right script. “Neither of us is against it. I would love to do another one. I love that character. To me, the reason to make that movie is because people want to see it. Paul and I have said that to each other. We don’t take for granted the fact that we’ve built an audience for Bourne, that’s a real privilege. But our part of that bargain is that the movie is good and belongs with the other three. Until we can deliver that, we just can’t make it.”
Legacy hauled in around $267 million, the lowest grossing entry of the series. So we may have to wait and see if Jason Bourne can find his way out of limbo.