What’s going on with the Jason Bourne franchise? Funny you ask. Well, like a lot of properties, it’s moving to television. USA Networks has announced a prequel series to the Matt Damon-led movies called “Treadstone,” named after the top-secret black ops program of the CIA that featured prominently in the ‘Bourne’ franchise.
READ MORE: Matt Damon Says He’d Need An “Incredible Story” To Return For More ‘Bourne’
“Treadstone” is written and executive produced by Tim Kring best known for his creation of the show’s “Strange World,” “Crossing Jordan,” and “Heroes.” Ramin Bahrani, the indie filmmaker behind “99 Homes,” and the upcoming HBO movie “Fahrenheit 451,” will direct the pilot, and serve as an executive producer. Four other executive producers are named, Jeffrey Weiner, Justin Levy and Bradley Thomas, but only Ben Smith has ever worked on a ‘Bourne’ film before (a co-producer who first worked on Tony Gilroy‘s “The Bourne Legacy” and 2016’s “Jason Bourne.” Damon and director Paul Greengrass‘ names are obviously nowhere to be found as well as the series’ main producer Frank Marshall. Here’s the official synopsis via THR:
“Treadstone” will explore the origin story and present-day actions of a CIA black ops program known as Treadstone — a covert operation that uses behavior modification protocol to turn its agents into nearly unstoppable superhuman assassins. The series follows sleeper agents across the globe as they’re mysteriously “awakened” to resume their deadly missions.
READ MORE: Jeremy Renner Still Wants To Do A ‘Bourne Legacy’ Sequel
Either way, the series doesn’t bode well for the pulse of the movie series with Matt Damon and Greengrass. The last film in the series, “Jason Bourne” actually didn’t perform too badly in theaters. Grossing $415 million worldwide, “Jason Bourne” is the second highest grossing film in the series worldwide and third highest domestically. But $162 million domestically is not the kind of money a series of this stature should be making and the critical response to the fifth film in the series was tepid at best.
Damon and Greengrass have already suggested “Jason Bourne” might be their last hurrah and given that USA Networks is going to try and strip the property for parts on TV, one would assume the duo’s enthusiasm for going forward will likely fade away.
