Ok, here’s a small, but revealing little update on “Bourne 4.” Earlier in the week we alluded to some of the behind-the-scenes issues going on with “Bourne 4” right, and all of them seem to be studio-based according to an interview with Matt Damon, as he and director Paul Greengrass have their heads in different places.
To recap, there’s two scripts being written. One by George Nolfi (who co-wrote ‘Bourne 3’ and is currently busy working with Matt Damon on “The Adjustment Bureau“) is complete. But Universal has hired another writer, Josh Zetumer, to write what they are diplomatically calling a “parallel” script. What does that tell you about the first script that’s been turned in? Maybe that people aren’t so happy with it and they’ve turned to another writer perhaps?
So there’s two scripts and one that is basically done, right? Damon hasn’t read either? “Not yet,” he tells Collider. “Paul finished cutting ‘The Green Zone’ except for some effects. It’s coming out in March. He hasn’t had a break literally since he did ‘The Bourne Supremacy’ – which is six years ago now. So he was like, ‘I need to take a break’… so he’s been on vacation for about three weeks and he’s going to take a few more and then he said he’d come to New York and we’d sit down and we’d talk seriously about it.”
So yes, the studios, producers and suits have been discussing ‘Bourne 4’ quite a bit and doing lots of strategizing — hiring two writers, doing everything they can so the picture can shoot in the fall/late fall of 2010 — which yes, right now is the intended goal and the scheduled time-frame that Damon, a big star, has left open for them. If they miss that window, they could be fucked.
What does it all really mean? Damon and Greengrass haven’t really sat down to discuss this in earnest yet and with Greengrass apparently sniffing around on other projects… We’ll see where it all nets out in the next few weeks.
Update: during the Toronto International Film Festival press conference for “The Informant!,” a Steven Soderbergh film that Damon stars in, the actor was asked about “Bourne 4,” and he didn’t sound anymore convinced the film was going to happen anytime soon than he has in recent weeks. Reiterating the idea of only making another film if there’s a good script, Damon said, “There’s not one [a Bourne film happening] in the next year at least, or two. Maybe in two years we can shoot one if we got a good script, but… [pausing for a long time], it’s the same way we felt about the other one. If we can figure out a way to do it, then we’ll do it, but we won’t do one just to do it.”
Not shooting for two years? Oof. Of course that’s just Damon speculation, but that would put the film off until 2012-ish and of course, Univeral would love to shoot this one next fall. The ‘Bourne’ plot thickens, but it really feels like these guys would like to explore other avenues and as we reported earlier, Greengrass is looking around.
