Tony Gilroy To Direct The Bourne Legacy
Universal Pictures is making a deal with Michael Clayton helmer Tony Gilroy to direct a fourth installment of The Bourne Identity. Gilroy was hired to write the script back in June. This signals that the picture -- tentatively titled The Bourne Legacy -- is on a clear forward track, though it doesn't answer the question of whether Matt Damon will return to reprise his signature character of the amnesiac assassin/agent Jason Bourne. Damon last indicated that he wouldn't come back unless director Paul Greengrass helmed what would have been his third installment, after Greengrass exited the picture in a huff when the studio began developing it while Greengrass and Damon were making Universal's Green Zone. I'm told that Universal plans to make the film, even if it has to replace Damon, who'd be crazy to give up his franchise character and a huge paycheck if the script is any good.
There is every reason to think it will be, since Gilroy's writing has provided the spine for the first three pictures. Gilroy goes back to the beginning: He deconstructed a dense Robert Ludlum spy thriller down to its essence of a man who can't remember his past, who doesn't want to kill, but will have to in order to find out the truth. Even though some think Gilroy misfired with Duplicity with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, his Michael Clayton was superb, and he knows the Bourne franchise better than any filmmaker the studio could have brought in. Doug Liman directed the first film, Greengrass the next two.
The picture will be produced by Frank Marshall, along with Jeffrey Weiner and Ben Smith of Captivate Entertainment. Bourne had originally been earmarked for 2012, but right now a clear timetable hasn't been locked in. The picture is a giant priority for Universal, and Donna Langley and Peter Cramer have been working hard to make it happen. The studio has recently been making some big bets, including an adaptation of HP Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness that will team director Guillermo del Toro and producer James Cameron, and it just paid $1.5 million against $3 million for the Evan Daugherty script Snow White and the Huntsmen, with Rupert Sanders attached to direct and Joe Roth producing. While Uni has completed a fifth installment of The Fast and the Furious, Bourne is its real franchise gem, outside of getting Steven Spielberg back for another Jurassic Park.
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