Hawkeye star Jeremy Renner is game and ready to reprise his role as Aaron Cross in The Bourne Legacy sequel if it ever gets the green light. The movie was notoriously known for underperforming at the box office, and it also did not help that reviews from fans and critics were less-than-stellar.
Matt Damon, who starred in the original trilogy, chose not to reprise his role as the titular character in 2012’s The Bourne Legacy for the reason that director Paul Greengrass was not at the helm.
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Jeremy Renner Wants To Make Another Bourne Legacy Movie
During his interview with Collider, actor Jeremy Renner shared what he loved about filming for The Bourne Legacy. Apart from the complexity of his character and the small-budget feels of a massive franchise due to its small team, he also loved the communion and emotional investment of everyone in the movie. This made the actor willing to return for another shot.
“I really really enjoyed shooting that movie, and so my desire and will in wanting to do that is yes, but it has to be… an audience has to want that and the studio. There’s a lot of other people. It’s kind of outside my pay grade to make those decisions, but yeah, I’d want to do that.”
Matt Damon rose to stardom for leading the Bourne movie franchise. He starred in 2002’s The Bourne Identity, 2004’s The Bourne Supremacy, 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum, and 2016’s Jason Bourne. As mentioned, he skipped The Bourne Legacy because director Paul Greengrass did not return.
Damon was originally opposed to making sequels, but what made him agree to it was Greengrass expressing enthusiasm to return. He explained via Independent:
“If I go to a sequel to a movie I really liked and I feel like it was made cynically, as a money-grab by the studio, I end up really resenting the studio and the filmmakers that made it, plus it’s just very hard to make a good sequel.”
When the studio attempted to revive the Bourne hype with Renner on the lead, Damon felt like they just killed the franchise. He told Playboy (via Parade) that “they might have taken the Bourne series out back and shot it in the head.”
Will There Be A Bourne Legacy Sequel?
While Jeremy Renner is a profitable actor, and he’s really got the chops for action movies, there is no way fans would be interested in a film where the titular character is nowhere to be found. This is why The Bourne Legacy ended up a box office mess.
From a massive budget of $125 million, it only grossed over $276 million in global ticket sales. The possibility of a Renner-led Bourne movie is slim, as producer Frank Marshall told Yahoo! Movies: “I don’t know. That story is still out there as well but it’s not… we’re not talking about it.”
The Avengers star remains positive about a potential sequel to his Bourne movie despite it being unlikely due to its performance and critical reception.
Bourne movies are available to stream via Netflix.
