Press junkets for Paul Greengrass’ upcoming Iraq war thriller, “Green Zone” took place on Friday night, which means reports started to filter out shortly thereafter.
Of course everyone asked about the future of the ‘Bourne’ franchise even though Greengrass has clearly moved on, but to be fair, Damon’s reboot comments have caused some confusion.
Actually, comments that both Greengrass and Damon gave on Friday night really suggested the duo had spoken to Universal and were practically giving them career advice on where to take the ‘Bourne’ franchise without them.
Well, if they suggested that to the general press, when they did one-on-one interviews with MTV, they were pretty explicit about their aims.
“We see a very clear way that they could go [with the story] that wouldn’t interfere with the series that we have and that might give it a chance to have a life right now and if we come back and did another one, even after that without us,” Damon told MTV.
So that basically sounds like Greengrass and Damon saying, “Here’s how not to fuck it up and make sense for the day if/when we decide to come back.” They obviously don’t want their baby destroyed, but they seem to be well-aware that Universal and its shareholders need this series to keep going.
Their idea is similar to 007, which is essentially a license to kill, and an agent number that any agent can take if his predecessor is killed. MTV sums it up well, the reboot idea (though it’s not a reboot in the sense that we forget what has happened before), a “new actor/character takes on Bourne’s literal identity — the name given to a uniquely positioned government operative.”
So is Universal open to that idea? “They’re still figuring out what they’re doing,” Greengrass said, suggesting they’re exploring all their options. “But I’m going to continue to make movies for Universal. I’m going to continue to make movies with Matt hopefully. They’ll undoubtedly continue to make ‘Bourne’ movies. So it’s all good news.”
Will Universal go for it? Come up with another idea entirely? Stay tuned.