Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne Return Officially Gets Update From Director

Arguably the greatest spy thriller franchise of all time, James Bond is gearing up for a major comeback, with the search for the next 007 taking center stage in recent weeks. Expectations are high for Amazon MGM as it prepares to relaunch the beloved spy franchise, with the next installment set to be helmed by Denis Villeneuve (Dune). But while the world waits to see what the future holds for Bond, another major spy hero, arguably the only one capable of going toe-to-toe with 007, if not surpassing him in the eyes of fans who prefer a more grounded approach to espionage, has remained dormant.

Talks about a sixth Jason Bourne movie began almost immediately after the fifth installment, Jason Bourne, hit theaters in 2016, bringing Matt Damon back as the fugitive CIA assassin. However, it wasn’t until 2023 that a sixth movie was officially greenlit, with Edward Berger attached to direct. Even then, having a director on board did little to accelerate the project, as Berger himself once expressed doubts about whether he would ultimately be the one to helm the next Bourne movie. Franchise star Damon was equally uncertain about returning, citing his age as a potential obstacle. Earlier this year, however, the actor was more optimistic, revealing that he and Berger were working to nail down a story that could bring him back to the franchise.

While there has been no further confirmation about the status of the long-in-the-works story, fans continue to hope that Bourne‘s story isn’t over just yet. The latest dose of optimism comes from Paul Greengrass, who directed Damon in all three of his original Bourne movies, as well as the 2016 revival, Jason Bourne, but sat out the Jeremy Renner-led fourth installment, The Bourne Legacy. Greengrass, who recently directed the star-studded action drama The Uprising, told the The Rest Is Classified podcast that he was rooting for the franchise to continue. “I hope they bring him back,” he said, adding, “I don’t know whether they will. I think they still try to.”

Four action series. One of them is built around exactly the way you
handle pressure, people, and a room that has just gone very quiet. Here is where you would survive
the trilogy, and probably headline it.

You are precision with a grudge. You don’t posture, you don’t
escalate, and you don’t warn anybody twice. That is exactly why the people who know you are
so careful never to be the reason you start.

• The Wick films run on discipline: an underworld with actual etiquette, a hero who
  honours every rule of it, and a world that unravels the instant someone breaks one
  against him.
• You share that quality. You are extraordinarily reasonable right up to the line, and
  then completely immovable past it.
• Focus, commitment and sheer will. You’d be the one carrying grief through three sequels
  and turning it into technique rather than noise.
• People wouldn’t call you dangerous. They’d say your name quietly and let that do the
  work.

You understand the thing the whole franchise is secretly about:
the cars are spectacular, but the crew is the point. You collect people, you keep them, and
you’d drive through a building for any one of them.

• This series went from street racing to orbit without ever changing its actual subject,
  because loyalty scales and plot doesn’t have to.
• You have the same instinct. You build a family out of whoever turns up, and then you
  defend it past the point of reason.
• You’d thrive here because the franchise rewards exactly your strengths: warmth, nerve,
  an absolute refusal to leave anyone behind, and a relaxed relationship with physics.
• The mission can wait. The barbecue cannot.

You over-prepare and then take the dangerous part yourself
anyway. It looks like control, but it’s really responsibility. You have never worked out how
to ask somebody else to carry the risk.

• This is the franchise of the plan that collapses on schedule: the team, the mask, the
  rooftop, and the one person sprinting flat out because sprinting is all that’s left.
• You share that refusal to accept an outcome. Told the odds, you treat them as an
  administrative error.
• You’d thrive here because these films reward competence and loyalty in equal measure.
  The mission matters, but nobody on the team gets left on the wrong side of a door.
• Some people delegate the cliff. You have never once been that person.

You are not the most trained person in the building, the best
equipped, or the one anybody would have picked. You are simply the one still standing at the
end, which turns out to be the only qualification that matters.

• Die Hard invented the modern action hero by making him mortal: outgunned, out-planned,
  bleeding, and extremely funny about it.
• You share that stubbornness. Adversity doesn’t make you noble, it makes you sarcastic,
  and then it makes you unstoppable.
• You’d thrive here because these films reward improvisation and nerve over preparation,
  and you’ve never had the luxury of preparing anyway.
• You didn’t want any of this. You just declined to be the person who let it happen.

Paul Greengrass Refused to Jump Ship From Bourne to Bond

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An encouraging update from a key creative force behind the franchise offers hope that a sixth Bourne movie could eventually materialize. Although Greengrass isn’t attached to the next installment in any official capacity, he may not be done with the franchise just yet. The filmmaker described himself as a certified “Bourne guy” during the same podcast. His loyalty to the character created by Robert Ludlum runs so deep that Greengrass once turned down an opportunity to help usher in what would’ve been Daniel Craig‘s James Bond era.

“They asked me after I did Bourne Supremacy,” he recalled. “I have immense admiration and respect for what Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson did with that. And Daniel, you know, was a fantastic James Bond. But it’s a bit like if you play for Manchester United, you can’t sign for Man City, you know? You wouldn’t feel right about that. You feel loyal. I do.”

Given that level of loyalty to the franchise, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Greengrass return for another Bourne movie someday. For now, however, we wait. In the meantime, you can catch up on all five Bourne movies, which recently became available to stream on Netflix. Stay tuned for future updates.

Jason Bourne