10 Weird Early Appearances By Iconic Film Characters

3. Jason Bourne And The Crappy TV Movie

Nobody can imagine Jason Bourne without Matt Damon starring or Paul Greengrass directing. Which is probably why audience figures were decidedly disappointing for The Bourne Legacy, helmed by longtime screenwriter Tony Gilroy and featuring the talented Jeremy Renner in a part that...well, it wasn't Jason Bourne. Which is also why people are so pumped at the news that the original duo (well, to be fair, the original duo would be Damon and Doug Liman, but we're not gonna split hairs) are going to return for a fifth Bourne film at some point in the near future. Greengrass pioneered as documentary-style "shaky cam" way of filming these gritty espionage thrillers, and Damon's become synonymous with the role that made his name. Which makes it all the more bizarre to go back and look at the first attempt at adapting Robert Ludlum's phenomenally popular bestsellers for the screen. That happened not in 2002 but way back in 1988, again as a TV movie; this time it aired on ABC, and was a butt-numbingly three hours long. And if you think that there was enough material in the novel to sustain it for that long then, well, we're glad that you live one of those glass-half-full lives, but you're wrong. Rather than a thrilling action romp which never lets up, the first version of The Bourne Identity is a plodding, tedious affair with sixties teen idol Richard Chamberlain as the amnesiac spy, who manages neither the charm nor sex appeal of Damon - as evidenced by the frankly cringy love scene between him and Jaclyn Smith (in the part played way, way better by Franka Potente second time around).