Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Tony Gilroy (“Michael Clayton,” “The Bourne Legacy”) has had a banner year with the second and final season of “Andor,” his critically-acclaimed “Star Wars” series—a prequel to the “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” movie he helped salvage and save— that has appealed to both devoted acolytes and converted non-believers of the Force (read our review). Our conversations with about the Diego Luna-led ensemble show are well documented and our discussions with the writer/showrunner/creator about his brief flirtation with James Bond ideas with Steven Soderbergh, the “Michael Clayton” series he wouldn’t let Warner Bros. make, details on his new, upcoming film “Behemoth!” starring Oscar Isaac, and more.
Our long-running conversations spanned most of Gilroy’s career, and given that—at least in the minds of fans—the filmmaker has “fixed” and brought “Star Wars” back to life with “Andor,” I couldn’t help, but ask if he could do the same with the ‘Bourne’ franchise, the series that he was the longtime screenwriting architect of until he fell out with its star Matt Damon over the ‘Bourne Ultimatum’ script that Damon alleged was phoned in for money.
Gilroy has never really acknowledged that part of things—either the allegations and Damon’s barbed comments—other than some confusion and praise for Damon, and didn’t address it either. But I had to posit: if Universal—who has struggled for the last few years to develop a film—really wanted to get ‘Bourne’ back on tap, they would return to the source and re-hire Gilroy to take them forward.
Gilroy’s answer to my position was, “Oh, man, I don’t know!” a little exasperated even by the idea. Then he offered how he had already tried to expand the franchise with his 2012 action/thriller installment, “The Bourne Legacy,” starring Jeremy Renner.
“I mean, I tried to give them a Marvel Universe with ‘Legacy,’ he said about how his fourth film in the series opened a whole new avenue of possibilities. “I really did. “I think it’s really underrated in terms of its aspirations and what it actually did. I really do.”
Gilroy ambiguously referenced the problems created in the franchise when Damon made his infamous dissing comments to GQ and seemingly suggested that it would be a challenging roadblock to get past.
“But you know, the social problems with that [franchise] and the communication problems and just all the crap that… it’s sad, it was never—information didn’t flow to people the way it was supposed to…,” he said vaguely, trailing off.
Ultimately, Gilroy said he did not watch all of 2016’s “Jason Bourne” and wasn’t sure where one would go with it next, regardless.
“I don’t know how you’d incorporate what they did going forward. You wanna know the truth? I don’t understand the cosmos of [that franchise] anymore. I know where I left off. But after the next one they made, ‘Jason Bourne,’ I don’t know how you go forward,” he admitted. [‘Bourne 4’] is a mystery to me.”
“My feeling always was with Bourne, unlike Bond, there’s nothing cynical about it,” he continued. “You can’t put another actor in that part. You cannot violate that [pact with the audience]. What was cool about it was the reality of it, the instinct, the acoustic nature of it. I never saw all of [‘Bourne’] four in its entirety. I’ve seen little bits and pieces. I don’t know where they really left it,” he said.
“I have a feeling it’s not left in such an easy place to recover,” he concluded and ended with the notion that returning to the franchise would be a bad idea. “I think that would be a poor career decision on my part.”
I ended with, well, I’d still love for them to give you a call and see what happens, but our conversation turned elsewhere quickly as time ran out. I will definitely say that “The Bourne Legacy” is underrated and is worthy of a rewatch to be sure.
You can listen to our whole The Rogue Ones podcast conversation below.
Rodrigo Perez is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Playlist, which he launched in 2007. He has worked in entertainment journalism since 2000, including at MTV, and has written for SPIN, IndieWire, Pitchfork, Complex, Magnet, and various music, film, and entertainment publications over the past two decades.
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