The odds of Matt Damon returning to the big screen as Jason Bourne are looking longer than ever judging from a conversation I had with the actor on Tuesday night. Damon, who’s still sporting a shaved head for his work on the sci-fi thriller Elysium, was part of the starry crowd that turned out for a special private screening of Argo, which was beautifully directed by his bud and Good Will Hunting co-writer Ben Affleck. During a dinner at the Porter House steakhouse in the Time Warner Center, I asked Damon if there had been any movement on reports that he could reprise his role after Jeremy Renner’s portrayal of Aaron Cross in The Bourne Legacy, another agent in the Robert Ludlum-created universe, this past summer.
“There has not been any movement,” Damon told me, explaining that though “I’ve always been open to it as long as Paul Greengrass directs, I don’t think he’s going to do it.” Damon laughed when he said this, as if, perhaps, he was downplaying how Greengrass really felt about The Bourne Legacy, or perhaps because he had his own falling-out with Gilroy — who has been a writer on every Bourne film and directed Legacy — over the script to the third movie, The Bourne Ultimatum.
Asked why Greengrass was loathe to return to the franchise, Damon said that although he hadn’t seen Legacy yet, ”from what I understand, it kind of relives [The Bourne Ultimatum] from a different perspective.” (Legacy is meant to take place concurrently with the events of the third movie, and Jason Bourne is referenced.)
“What that means, because they use our actors and characters, is that whatever they…
Full Story »Tony Gilroy’s tumultuous history with the Jason Bourne franchise is, as he calls it, “well-documented.” But after penning or co-scripting the first three Matt Damon-starring spy pics in the series — navigating a maelstrom of widely reported behind the scenes beefs, including Damon’s snipe last year at Gilroy’s Bourne Ultimatum script — the writer-director was lured back to this weekend’s The Bourne Legacy by the opportunity to create a new secret agent (Jeremy Renner) to build insidious political conspiracies and impossible action sequences and existential questions around. “In a strange way,” he tells Movieline, “I felt more of a personal connection with this character than I ever felt with Jason Bourne.”
Prior to Gilroy coming aboard The Bourne Legacy, which introduces Renner’s highly-skilled agent Aaron Cross as Jason Bourne’s gentler, funnier, and more genetically-modified contemporary (Chems! He needs chems!), Universal and author Robert Ludlum’s estate were in a bind to find a new, fresh way to continue the lucrative spy franchise. Gilroy, who had left the series behind to helm his own Michael Clayton and Duplicity — and up to that point, he admits, had never even seen the Paul Greengrass-directed The Bourne Ultimatum — took a polite coffee meeting, which turned into a few weeks’ worth of scripting help, which in turn rekindled his interest in the property so much so he signed on to direct.
The result is a Bourne “sidequel” that runs parallel to the events of Ultimatum but follows new hero Renner as he and Rachel Weisz’s comely, brainy scientist Dr. Marta Shearing evade a government burn-down of their top secret Outcome program. The action takes the pair from the labs to the woods of Maryland to the streets of Manila, through an assortment of set pieces…
Full Story »The Bourne Legacy is a passable movie that has the peculiar misfortune of being part of a very successful, influential and distinctive franchise. Box office-wise, this is probably not going to be much of a hardship, but in terms of content and style it definitely suffers in comparison. The Bourne predecessors, particularly the two directed by Paul Greengrass, are by my count some of the most exhilarating action movies in recent cinematic history.
The Bourne Legacy is not.
Still, it has two very good leads in Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz and a few tense, rangy sequences in a half-restored house in the Maryland woods and in the sterile confines of a high-security lab. Tony Gilroy, who worked on the screenplays for the past three films in the series, gets a bump up to director in this installment (he also shares a writing credit), but, that jowly opening fight in Duplicity aside, he’s no great facilitator of action scenes.
Gilroy also has to reverse engineer this ungainly “sidequel” to fit around the existing mythology of the previous trilogy without overlapping it too much — Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) himself is mentioned many times while never appearing, but his actions are what spur the events in this film, which takes place in approximately the same time frame as The Bourne Ultimatum.
The result is a convoluted back-end story that’s grouted around what’s happened before, but is essentially the tale of a brutal clean- and cover-up. Bourne looked for clues to his identity and his reason for being; Cross (Renner), the hero of The Bourne Legacy, is just trying to stay whole.
It’s a process that’s more complicated than straightforward survival for him. Cross is an agent of Outcome, which, like Blackbriar, is a successor program to Bourne’s…
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It’s of course no secret that Jeremy Renner is the new face of the Bourne franchise, playing Aaron Cross, a new character in a parallel story to The Bourne Ultimatum. But could Matt Damon possibly team up with Renner in future installments of the story? Yes says the producer of Legacy.
The Bourne Legacy producer told Empire that “all possibilities” are open. “You see there are several different programs in the movie with different skill sets,” said producer Frank Marshall. “All possibilities are open. My dream is that in the next one we see Matt and Jeremy team up.”
EW notes that Damon reprising his Jason Bourne character could be complicated, however, because of his loyalty to Bourne director Paul Greengrass and the actor had a public spat with Bourne creator Tony Gilroy last December.
Because despite all indications otherwise, Gary Ross has reportedly walked away from Lionsgate’s blockbuster sequel Catching Fire. Let’s come up with plan B!
Via The Playlist:
Though recent trade reports have spun the story as being an issue mostly about money, that’s pretty much a small part of the motivation. Ross has never been a filmmaker that repeats himself (going from satire in Pleasantville to horse racing drama in Seabiscuit and action in Hunger Games) and we’re told the burning desire simply isn’t there to spend another couple of years with Katniss in the Capitol (evidently, he also liked the first book best). And while the lowball salary offer probably didn’t help, Ross already has a fairly lucrative career as a screenwriter (and rewriter) and money isn’t really the issue. Simply put, the filmmaker is looking to change things up for this next effort.
Mazel tov, Gary Ross. But damn this creative vacuum. Who to call on as his replacement? What’s that guy who made Safe House up to next? My money’s on him. Or Paul Greengrass. The shakier the camera, the better.
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Even after the frustration and angst vented by the franchise’s erstwhile star, Matt Damon hasn’t given up hope of reprising his role as super-spy Jason Bourne: “I think if [Bourne Legacy] doesn’t work, we can just ignore it and pretend it didn’t happen, and that’d be fine. But I expect that it will work and only help us if we did another one, which I’d love to do.” With Paul Greengrass instead of Tony Gilroy, of course, but anyway. Hang your hopes accordingly. [THR]
“No, I have no idea about any of it. All I know is that it doesn’t preclude Paul [Greengrass] and me from doing another one of ours,” original Bourne series star Matt Damon teased recently when asked if he’d show up to pass the torch to Jeremy Renner in Tony Gilroy’s 2012 sequel The Bourne Legacy. Cheeky as that answer is, Damon was quick to play nice anyhow. “He’s got a whole other thing that they’re doing and I wish them well,” he added, “and Tony [Gilroy’s] really smart. I’m sure they’re going to be great.” So, no hard feelings. Really. [MTV]
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Also in this Friday edition of The Broadsheet: Olivia Wilde may find Better Living Through Chemistry… Natalie Portman and Katherine Heigl have something common… Paul Greengrass gets busy… and more ahead.
· Time for another Tom Cruise-centric actress short list! Per Variety, Universal is testing five leading ladies to star opposite Cruise in Horizons (formerly Oblivion), the sci-fi blockbuster from Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski that might remind you of WALL*E. The chosen five: Jessica Chastain, Olivia Wilde, Brit Marling, Noomi Rapace and Olga Kurylenko. Universal had no comment on the list (naturally), but the five will reportedly test with Kosinski over the weekend for the chance to star in one of two roles: the wife Cruise’s Jack had on Earth before aliens invaded and killed everyone, and the right-hand woman he teams with during missions back to Earth to repair safety drones that protect the planet from said aliens. [Variety]
· Speaking of Olivia Wilde, the Cowboys & Aliens star will replace the pregnant Jennifer Garner in the indie comedy Better Living Through Chemistry. The film stars Sam Rockwell as a small-town pharmacist who has an affair with a trophy wife (Wilde) and winds up plotting to kill her husband. [Variety]
· Holler at Paul Greengrass! The acclaimed director is attached to direct an adaptation of Robert Harris’s thriller Fear Index, “about a scientist who uses a revolutionary system of computer algorithms to trade on the volatility of the world’s financial markets. His hedge fund is wildly successful until he is targeted by an intruder who breaks into his home.” Tense! In other directorial news, Robert Zemeckis will officially handle Flight…
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According to Variety, Brad Pitt is negotiating to play the title role in the assassin thriller The Gray Man, adapted by Adam Cozad from Mark Greaney’s 2009 novel. The role would see Pitt as Court Gentry, an ex-CIA operative known for his lethal skill who goes on the run after his last job goes wrong, with action taking place across the globe. Could this be Hollywood’s next Bourne-style property?
James Gray (Two Lovers) is on board to direct from Cozad’s script — making Gray the man, so to speak, for The Gray Man. (Yes, groan, I know.) When he was first announced to direct the film, Gray himself acknowledged the legacy of the Bourne films on the genre. “What [Paul Greengrass] did was a documentary-style objective approach, and he owns that style,” Gray told Deadline back in January. “I want to do the opposite, which feels like a good way to sympathize with a professional hitman. You humanize him by never distancing yourself from his experience. This story has emotional stakes that enable me to do that.”
What hasn’t been mentioned, thus far, is the possibility that The Gray Man could spawn an entire action franchise; the film is adapted from Greaney’s novel of the same name, but he wrote two sequels: 2010’s On Target and the forthcoming Ballistic, which hits shelves this September.
Meanwhile, let’s take a look at Greaney’s own fantasy casting for The Gray Man, posted last year with an acknowledgment that he had no say in the selection process: Casey Affleck for the Gray Man, Michael Caine as his handler, James Franco (or Topher Grace) as an “evil,” “intelligent” corporate attorney. (Read the full fantasy…
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Hollywood may already have two Frankenstein projects in development (one with Summit and the other through Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Productions) but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for a third. Fox has just hired Chronicle scribe Max Landis (John’s son) to write a screenplay based on Mary Shelley’s classic novel. The studio is reportedly considering Paul Greengrass and David Yates (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) to direct. [Variety]
