Matt Damon is a prominent actor, film producer, and screenwriter; who is popular for his action roles. He came into the limelight with his film Good Will Hunting, which helped him win an Academy Award. He has proven excellence in acting with other projects like Saving Private Ryan, Syriana, The Departed, and The Informant, among others. He is also known for playing an assassin in his action film series Bourne.
Ford v Ferrari star was part of the Bourne franchise for three movies. In the next movies of the franchise, his character was replaced, which made the actor insecure about his franchise.
Matt Damon felt like Jeremy Renner’s Bourne ruined the franchise
Matt Damon’s character arch was wrapped up in the third movie of the series The Bourne Ultimatum. He felt it was the perfect end to the franchise, but the studio thought otherwise. They came up with a new movie for the Bourne series, excluding former star Matt Damon. The film, The Bourne Legacy was released in 2012, with Jeremy Renner as the new lead.
Damon was enthusiastic about his return to the franchise, but he felt the chance was ruined with Jeremy Renner’s film. Talking about legacy, he shared with Playboy,
“You know what? They might have taken the Bourne series out back and shot it in the head. If that’s the end of it, that’s just the end of it. I hope not. I love the character and the three movies we did, so I’d love to figure out a way to do another one.”
The Martian star explained in detail during an interview with Movieline,
“From what I understand, it kind of relives [The Bourne Ultimatum] from a different perspective. What that means, because they use our actors and characters, is that whatever they said [in Legacy] is true and so we’d have to acknowledge it in any Bourne movie that we’d do. And that makes it really tough.”
As per reports, Damon did not work on the fourth film of the series because of director Paul Greengrass’s exit, hence, he also lost interest in doing another film in the series.
Matt Damon did not believe in the success of The Bourne Identity
Damon’s action thriller film The Bourne Identity received well at the box office with a gross collection of $214 million worldwide. The series of films were based on the series of books written by author Robert Ludlum. As per reports, the lead Matt Damon was unsure of making a sequel to the film as he believed that most movie sequels did not fare well at the box office.
Elysium star shared in an interview with Female First,
“And just for me as a movie fan, 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.”
He finally agreed to go for the sequel when his Bourne Identity director Paul Greengrass expressed interest in his return to the show. He said,
“Once I started to talk to Paul about what his vision of the movie was and heard not only his enthusiasm but also how he intended to do it, and keeping in mind that Bloody Sunday was one of my favorite movies of the last decade, I felt like it was something I couldn’t say no to.”
Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass reunited for Jason Bourne, released in 2016.
Source-Showbiz Cheat Sheet
