Jason Bourne is on the run, but not in the way audiences would expect.
Instead, THR reports that WME is looking for a new home for the super-spy franchise after Universal‘s rights to the IP lapsed. The rest of novelist Robert Ludlum‘s work, the writer who first created Bourne, is part of the package being shopped to potential buyers like Skydance, Apple, and Netflix. And Universal could get the rights back, too, if their price is right.
The news may surprise some Bourne fans, as last they heard “Conclave” director Edward Berger was attached to develop a new film in the franchise in 2023. But that project never got beyond an initial greenlight phase. One imagines the Berger hire was a last-ditch effort by Universal to keep the Bourne property and not have the rights lapse. But Berger’s been busy with other things since 2023, like “Conclave” and “The Ballad Of A Small Player,” which hits Netflix later this year.
Now no Berger Bourne movie means the spy must find a new home, and possibly a new leading man to play him. Matt Damon was involved in Berger’s iteration, but with the franchise’s future unclear, it’s also not certain if Damon will reprise the role again. Also of note: there hasn’t been a Bourne film since 2016’s “Jason Bourne,” which did well at the global box office, but came after 2012’s soft reboot “The Bourne Legacy” with Jeremy Renner, which critics and audiences met with a shrug. In short, this franchise’s heyday is now almost two decades ago. Are moviegoers today really clamoring for a new Bourne film?
They might be, especially if it takes Amazon MGM a couple of years to figure out their plans for James Bond. If 007 doesn’t return to the big screen in the next two to three years, then a new Bourne film could make up for the paucity of well-known spy-driven IP in multiplexes. And for better or worse, familiar IP drives a lot of the movie business nowadays. Sequels are mostly safe bets for studios to make easy money, and each Bourne movie (even “Legacy”) have been modest box office hits. So studios may look at acquiring the Bourne franchise as an easy lay-up: a guaranteed moneymaker, just not one as gigantic as “Avatar” or “Inside Out 2.”
Then again, Matt Damon turns 55 this October, and that’s pretty old for an invincible spy. But then a more vulnerable Jason Bourne would be a bold choice for whichever studio scoops up the character. Stay tuned to see where Bourne ends up.
