The newest installment in the Jason Bourne series will be titled, The Bourne Legacy, and is slated for a 2012 release. The screenplay is complete and directed duties will be handed over to Tony Gilroy, the brilliant screenwriter whose screenplays for the first three Bourne pictures are among the smartest, most interesting Hollywood action-thriller scripts to come down the pike in the last decade.
Oh, and by the way...Matt Damon won't be in the film.
And oh yeah...one more thing...Jason Bourne won't even be a character in the film.
That's right: The Bourne Legacy, in spite of bearing the name of the same hero who headlined the previous three films, will not feature Jason Bourne. A "new hero" will take center stage according to Gilroy, who seems quite clear on his intentions...even though every word he says must confuse the daylights out of the interviewer.
Says Gilroy: "This is not a reboot or a recast or a prequel. No one's replacing Matt Damon. There will be a whole new hero, a whole new chapter ... this is a stand-alone project."
After the brilliant third (and presumed final) Bourne film, The Bourne Ultimatum, landed in 2007, the question of "will he or won't he" swirled around the possibility of Damon returning for another go-round. For his part, Damon all but confirmed that he would only return to the franchise is Paul Greengrass (director of Ultimatum and its immediate precursor, The Bourne Supremacy) were to stay on to direct. When news dropped last week that Gilroy would be helming the fourth film, rumors quickly spread that Damon was out. Now we know the reality -- Bourne isn't even in the new Bourne.
Gilroy is firm that the new film will both impact and be impacted by the conspiracies that were brewed in the Damon films; it will simultaneously function as an extension of the Bourne legend and an intriguing invitation to future Bourne adventures.
"The easiest way to think of it is as an expansion or a reveal," notes the filmmaker. "Jason Bourne will not be in this film, but he is still very much alive. What happened in the first three films is the trigger for what happens. I'm building a legend and an environment and a wider conspiracy...the world we're making enhances and advances and invites Jason Bourne's return."
To put the news in perspective, look at it this way. Gilroy is a fabulous writer -- one of the slickest and most intelligent thriller writers working today. He was Oscar-nominated both as writer and director of the brilliant Michael Clayton, and for my money, his script for The Bourne Ultimatum should have been Oscar-nominated as well. The ways he shaped the Bourne narrative with his screenplays was ingenious, and the idea that he has expanded upon the story to create a broader landscape for this story is quite exciting.
At this point, I can't speak to whether the Bourne-less Bourne came as simple inspiration in Gilroy's brain, or if it was the result of Damon's refusal to participate in any installment not directed by Paul Greengrass. But whatever the case, one can't help but be intrigued to discover what Gilroy has come up with, and how it will impact the world of Bourne.
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