Get out the chems, and get ready to run as Jason Bourne Aaron Cross is getting ready to kick some more ass. While the side-quel/spin-off “The Bourne Legacy” did solid if not exactly spectacular business (it’s the lowest grosser in the franchise, but also did about the same numbers as Matt Damon‘s first time at bat in the series), it was enough for Universal to start considering a fifth film. In fact, not long after it hit theaters the studio confirmed a sequel was in the works, and earlier this year it was said they were “actively working” on it. And today comes more firm word.
Deadline reports that Anthony Peckham has been hired to write the script, a pretty significant change in gears. As fans of the series know, Tony Gilroy has been involved since day one building the world of Jason Bourne as a writer, and then getting in the director’s chair for last year’s “The Bourne Legacy.” Peckham is notably the scribe behind “Sherlock Holmes,” which perhaps suggests Universal tried going the brainier route with ‘Legacy,’ didn’t like the results, and wants to try something on a broader, bigger and on a more tentpole friendly scale. In short: they want the fifth entry to be huge.
But they’ll have to do so without Matt Damon, who has long said he won’t consider returning the franchise without Paul Greengrass, and moreover doesn’t really see how his character can still work in the new story that has been put in motion. “I think it’s going to make it harder for us to make another one. I’m just trying to figure out like… Because they used our characters, anything that happens in that world, that’s the ‘Bourne’ world now. So the pill popping and all that stuff happens,” he told us last year while also being a bit cagey on both Jason and Aaron appearing in the same movie.
“I love Jeremy and I’m a huge fan of him and I know him personally and love him outside of work, too. But I just don’t know what that story would be. I could never see Bourne teaming up with anyone. And all he said was—he wanted out, he wanted out, he wanted out. So how do you get that character going again?” he continued.
No word yet if any of the other ‘Legacy’ cast members—Rachel Weisz and Edward Norton, particularly—will be back, but the script will pick up from that storyline. Things still seem to be a ways off, but it looks like Aaron will once again have to watch his back.