If you ask often enough, sometimes you get what you want, and for both fans of the Jason Bourne franchise and Universal, who were looking to stay in business with the pair who really made it a global sensation, the wishes were fulfilled when Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass decided to make the fourth installment (fifth, if you count spinoff/sidequel “The Bourne Legacy” starring Jeremy Renner), “Jason Bourne.” Over the years, Damon and Greengrass made it clear they didn’t want to return, and that they were a package deal; a new movie wouldn’t happen for one without the other. However, Damon says he kept running into people asking him to make another Bourne, and it wasn’t something he could ignore.
“At a certain point, I said to Paul, ‘People really want to see this movie, and that’s not something to turn our noses up at,’” he told The New York Times. “Having made movies that didn’t find an audience, I didn’t want to thumb our nose at this opportunity.”
That was certainly good news to the ears of Universal. Though they tried to keep the series alive with “The Bourne Legacy,” which was made just as much to keep the studio’s contract with author Robert Ludlum‘s estate going as continuing a franchise, right now there are no plans for more Renner-centered efforts. The studio has Damon and Greengrass back in house, and they aim to keep it that way.
“Even though Matt and Paul had been very definitive about not wanting to come back, we weren’t really willing to submit to that,” Universal Pictures chairwoman Donna Langley joked about the continual effort to get them to make another Bourne picture. And while the pair are once again staying mum on the prospect of more — though not ruling it out — Langley remains clear in her intentions.
“Look, here’s what I think the goal is: to keep Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass doing Bourne movies till they can’t do them anymore,” she said.
However, that will be for audiences to decide, and in a summer where numerous sequels have underwhelmed, everyone knows the stakes are high.
“It’s this weird thing where you can’t give them exactly the same thing, or they’ll be resentful,” Damon said. “But you have to give them enough of something they recognize that they feel like they’re getting what they paid for.”
We’ll see if they strike that balance when “Jason Bourne” opens on July 29th.
