Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass reunite to bring back Jason Bourne

Universal Pictures is currently working on reuniting Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass for another Bourne movie. Initially, the plan was to make a follow-up to the Bourne Legacy, which starred Jeremy Renner, and to have it helmed by Justin Lin. The development of that follow-up was stalled when the studio focused on trying to get Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass on the Bourne franchise. But according to reports, the Renner spinoff is still in development with Lin. So does this mean that there will be two separate Bourne movies being developed side-by-side? Although I would want to see the Bourne universe to go back to the Philippines, sad to say that the Renner Bourne just felt like a filler episode, and will probably evaporate when the Damon/Greengrass Bourne movie will launch. [Hit the jump to continue]

Looking back after release of the third Bourne movie "The Bourne Ultimatum" both Damon and Greengrass had expressed that they would not return to the franchise. Greengrass said that there was no more creative story left in the world of Jason Bourne, and Damon said that he wouldnt do a Bourne movie if it would not be helmed by Greengrass. Universal tried to keep the franchise alive with the Tony Gilroy-helmed and Jeremy Renner-starrer "The Bourne Legacy"

Universal has also announced that the “Untitled Next Bourne Chapter” (kind of a mouthful there, Universal) will be released on July 29, 2016.

It’s worth noting that this will be the first Bourne movie without the involvement of Tony Gilroy, who is credited with the screenplay for all four Bourne movies, and he also directed The Bourne Legacy.  However, in 2011, Damon slammed Gilroy’s Bourne Ultimatum script, telling GQ:

“It’s really the studio’s fault for putting themselves in that position,” Damon tells GQ. “I don’t blame Tony for taking a boatload of money and handing in what he handed in. It’s just that it was unreadable. This is a career-ender. I mean, I could put this thing up on eBay and it would be game over for that dude. It’s terrible. It’s really embarrassing. He was having a go, basically, and he took his money and left.”

Damon quickly apologized, although he didn’t retract his statement regarding the quality of the script.  But again, script isn’t so much an afterthought in a Greengrass movie as much as it’s a broad outline, and I’m a little surprised it’s taken this long to officially credit his editor as a co-writer.


Now, Universal has succeeded in convincing Damon and Greengrass back to the franchise, and it appears that they’ve stumbled upon an idea worth exploring, possibly with a script penned by Greengrass himself. This will be Damon and Greengrass' third Bourne movie together.  According to reports, Universal is so bullish on this prospect that the plan is to have this ready in time for release in 2016.