When Universal turned the reins to the Bourne franchise over to Jeremy Renner and director Tony Gilroy or a summer blockbuster, they wisely created a parallel story that could allow Matt Damon’s spy, Jason Bourne, to factor in somewhere down the line. Even when Renner did the press rounds, he teased the possibility of he and Damon teaming up for a massive Bourne adventure. Maybe his time spent on The Avengers has him thinking of team ups.
Sadly, Damon doesn’t have much interest in it.
The original Bourne spoke with Movieline following a special screening of Ben Affleck’s Argo in New York City. Conversation drifted around the The Bourne Legacy and Damon’s possible involvement in another chapter in the series, but he kind of shot it down, saying, “I’ve always been open to it as long as Paul Greengrass directs it. I don’t think he’s going to do it.”
Damon’s staying loyal to his Bourne director, who had a falling out with the studio over the Bourne story. Damon had his own tiff with Gilroy, as well. Needless to say, the parties are pretty far apart at the moment, and Damon doesn’t seem in a rush to mend fences.
“Because they use our actors and characters … whatever they said [in Legacy] is true and so we'd have to acknowledge it in any Bourne movie that we'd do. And that makes it really tough. I don't think we can do the Dallas it-was-all-a-dream scenario. I don't think the audience would go for that after they paid money to see a movie.”
Damon adds, wisely, that his character’s motivation always was to learn his true identity. Now that he has, where do they go from there? In short, they shouldn’t go anywhere. Bourne doesn’t have to be like Bond. We don’t need 23 stories with the same character. In fact, Legacy proved you could shift gears (and focus) by following a new agent. For what it was, it worked. If Universal wants to keep telling this story, they’ll likely have to keep doing it without Damon.
