When Universal Pictures released the Tony Gilroy helmed The Bourne Legacy earlier this year starring Jeremy Renner – the possibility of Matt Damon ever reprising the role of Jason Bourne seemed less of a possibility. However that doesn’t mean it can’t happen – and Matt Damon is open to the possibility, granted that certain requirements can be met.
The actor who’s been out promoting his new drama Promised Land directed by Gus Van Sant, was asked whether he might ever return to the role that helped define his career. He said that he and director Paul Greengrass have spoken about making a fourth instalment, but this is dependent on finding a story that will work.
Here’s what he had to say:
I’d love to, I really want to do another Bourne movie but we just can’t figure out the story. The studio had made a deal with the estate to make another film and so they weren’t in breach of their contract, they had to get a Jason Bourne movie out for 2012. And that’s when Tony came up with the idea of how to do one with Jeremy.
I’ve talked to Paul about this, and it’s really just a question of how do you bring the character back? Is there a movie that’s as good as the other three that we did – and if we felt like there was, then we’d do it, but we just haven’t cracked it yet.
Damon went on to reveal that he approached Person of Interest creator and The Dark Knight Rises co-writer Jonathan Nolan, to see if a conceivable story could be crafted:
I gave it to Jonah Nolan who did such a beautiful job with the Batman mythology – I mean along with Chris. I met with him and I said: “Would you take a look at this, because we really want to do it?
Jonah was great. He took like a month and really worked on it. He came back and said: “I can’t figure out how to do it.” He told me: “You guys really ended it, you know,” which we did. We had intended it to be a trilogy and he gets out at the end.
Jason hasn’t been seen since 2004, so if we started writing a movie next year, we probably couldn’t get one out by 2014 and that would have been ten years since the CIA has completely lost track of him. So what has the character been up to all this time?
It seems odd that these minds can’t come up with a story that extends the Bourne character – repetition of thematic issues are always a factor in sequels, and while we can applaud their desire not to recycle plot elements, anything at this stage would be better than Tony Gilroy’s recent offering . While Jeremy Renner is a fine performer, his character had little or no internal conflict, and the story lacked the momentum and danger that made the original Bourne flicks such a stand out. Aside from the interweaving of remnant story points from The Bourne Ultimatum, the film could’ve easily been part of another franchise.
Damon is now 42, and it’s been almost six years since he shot the third flick. The Bourne Legacy novel written by Eric Van Lustbader ( which did not serve as the basis for Gilroy’s script ) was a continuation of the Robert Ludlum series with the character once again known as David Webb, married with two young children and a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University – everything is fine until one day an assassin’s bullet narrowly misses him, setting a new series of events in play. Granted this would make a corny story for a big screen flick, but the events of the last two Bourne flicks have more or less been played out – finding a new spin will be difficult, but there is a massive fan base hoping that one day Matt Damon returns to play Jason Bourne again.
via: Screenrant
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