Matt Damon Says He Once Approached Jonathan Nolan For BOURNE 4
The star of the first three Bourne films, Matt Damon, recently revealed in an interview that one time he talked to The Dark Knight and TDKR co-writer Jonathan Nolan about the fourth film in the franchise.
The Bourne Legacy wasn't a massive hit for the studio this summer, even though Universal had high hopes for it. Before Jeremy Renner took over, Matt Damon played the title character in three films. He already said that Legacy just makes it harder for him to return to this franchise and that he can't see where would the story go. At one point, director Paul Greengrass and Damon tried to work on the script for a possible fourth film, but of course, the whole thing fell apart. In an interview with Deadline about his new film Promised Land (directed by Gus Van Sant), Damon talked about what needs to happen for him to star in another film and how he once approached Chris Nolan's brother, Jonathan Nolan, to see if he can make the story work:
"Just a couple things, really. Paul Greengrass has to want to do it, and secondly and equally important, it comes down to Paul and I knowing what the hell we want to do. We just don’t have a story, and we haven’t had one. I quietly went to Jonah Nolan, because he and his brother Chris did such a brilliant job on Batman and that whole mythology. I just said, can you put your brain on this? I can’t figure it out. And he took a run at it and he couldn’t crack it either. Paul and I have been talking about it for years. And we can’t quite see what the movie would be. If we could get line of sight on that... I would love to do another one. I love that character. To me, the reason to make that movie is because people want to see it. Paul and I have said that to each other. We don’t take for granted the fact that we’ve built an audience for Bourne, that’s a real privilege. But our part of that bargain is that the movie is good and belongs with the other three. Until we can deliver that, we just can’t make it."
I haven't had a chance to watch The Bourne Legacy in theatres (waiting for the Blu-ray) so I can't comment too much on that one, but I really did enjoy The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. Maybe they will get the script to a point where everyone likes it, and we'll see another Bourne with Damon.