Matt Damon pushing for BOURNE prequel without him
In December, Paul Greengrass left the Bourne franchise, claiming he wanted a new challenge elsewhere. I initially expected a Stephen Sodberbergh (Traffic, Solaris), a Tony Gilroy (screenwriter of Bourne Ultimatum, Duplicity), a George Nolfi (The Adjustment Bureau with Damon, Bourne screenwriter) type - someone who has a relationship with Universal and Matt Damon to come on board and make a fourth movie that would be a continuation of the events of The Bourne Ultimatum. This was partly because the Bourne movies keep making more and more money with each movie, but also partly because they had paid two different writers to work on two separate drafts for a new movie, and Universal would be ready to go on on the one they liked the most as soon as Damon's schedule was free and they found a new director. Turns out I was wrong... ...at least I'm wrong as far as what Greengrass and Damon want and believe will happen with the franchise. Damon has told Coming Soon that he wants out of the franchise and he is hoping the studio goes the reboot/prequel route...
"I think they have a good way to do a prequel with someone else, and basically make it about the Bourne identity, the actual identity. Any studio is interested in making it an evergreen that can just go on and on and on, and it never will with our character because hes resolved his issues now. Hes got his memory back three times now. I dont think anybody wants to see me say I dont remember again, but I think what we could do is that you can do some movies with another actor, anyone, whether its Ryan Gosling or Russell Crowe or Denzel Washington, and hes Jason Bourne, and at the end of his one or two or three movies, you see them getting ready to pass the identity onto me, so it just becomes like a 007, it becomes the name that they give this certain person who is uniquely positioned."Meanwhile, CHUD has quotes from Greengrass claiming the franchise "needs to be rebooted and reenergized by new perspectives". Does anyone else find it funny how a franchise which sold itself on doing things differently and being an alternative to the James Bond franchise - could soon end-up pulling an old 007 trick? No franchise without Damon, I'd say. Three good movies, two of them great, one of them fantastic - can't we be happy with that? via - /film