It’s been a little while since we’ve heard anything about the new Jason Bourne film that Universal announced last year with All Quiet On the Western Front and Conclave director Edward Berger. At the time, Matt Damon had not signed on to anything, and that’s probably still the case based on this latest update from Berger, who sounds as if the movie is a long way off. Not only that but he might not even be involved.
Berger spoke with Cinema Daily US and when asked about Bourne he made it sound as if things are pretty sketchy…
“It’s really not clear whether…I’m not doing it right now,” Berger said. “And I really don’t know what I will do in the future.”
The way Berger elaborates on it further makes it sound as if Bourne is barely out of the conceptual phase…
“But you know, “Bourne” is a wonderful franchise, and if there ever were an—and I don’t have it— an element that hasn’t been told yet and a good reason to bring it back and for me, to have a good reason to have the feeling, ‘I can make the movie as good as Paul Greengrass did, because he did great, great films, and that’s a very high [bar] to jump over. And you really need a new agenda of bringing it back, otherwise, there’s really no reason [to do so]. You can only bring it back if you have something new to tell. Something new to add and that would probably be Matt Damon’s only reason to come back.”
Let’s be honest, you don’t have a Jason Bourne movie without Matt Damon. They tried that once with The Bourne Legacy and the results weren’t great.
In the immediate future for Berger is Conclave, which is generating serious Oscar buzz. Berger also has the Netflix thriller The Ballad of a Small Player starring Tilda Swinton and Colin Farrell that’s currently in post-production.
