Summary
- The Bourne Legacy was supposed to have a sequel, but Matt Damon’s decision to return as Jason Bourne prevented Jeremy Renner’s return.
- Director Justin Lin had been working on a sequel to The Bourne Legacy, but Damon and director Paul Greengrass decided to come back to the franchise.
- Despite Damon’s return to the franchise, it is unlikely that Renner’s character will return for a second film, even though Damon is being considered for another legacy sequel.
The Bourne Legacy seemed to be the start of a new chapter in the movie franchise based on the character created by author Robert Ludlum, but a planned sequel never happened. Starring Jeremy Renner, the movie arrived a decade after Matt Damon brought Jason Bourne to cinemas in The Bourne Supremacy, and introduced Renner as new franchise lead Aaron Cross. Now director Justin Lin has explained how Damon’s decision to reprise his role in 2016’s Jason Bourne ultimately prevented Renner’s return.
The Bourne Legacy
- Release Date
- August 8, 2012
- Rating
- PG-13
- Runtime
- 135
During an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Lin recounted how there had been some exciting work done on a sequel to The Bourne Legacy, but it was all put to bed when the old team of Damon and director Paul Greengrass decided to come back to the franchise. Lin explained:
“Yep, ‘Bourne’ was one of them. It was after I left for ‘Fast 6’ and [Universal’s] Donna Langley reached out and said, ‘What do you think about ‘Bourne’ and I was like, ‘Oh man!’ and like, Renner’s amazing. And to this day, I still kinda miss what we were working on.
“I think Matt [Damon] was done [with the franchise] at that point. Again, I had a great time working on the script, and getting to know Jeremy Renner was such a perk; he’s such a great guy, a great actor, but also a great human being.
“I think in the middle of doing that], Matt [Damon] and [Paul] Greengrass decided to come back, which is totally cool; that’s their franchise, and I totally understand. But I think the time that I had on it, I think back fondly on it, and there’s actually some stuff in there that I hope to be able to bring to life in other projects cause it was such a great time working with Andrew Baldwin on the script and Jeremy, just hanging out and talking about his character was great.”
The Bourne Franchise Could Return Again
Despite it being almost a decade since Jason Bourne hit cinemas to mixed reviews, it seems that you can’t keep a good action hero down. Recently, it was revealed that Matt Damon is being considered for another return as the character in a new legacy sequel under the direction of Edward Berger.
Although there have been no further details revealed, it was reported in November 2023 that Damon is first in line to see the script once it is complete, with the hope that he will return as the character once again in a bid to give the saga a better send off his last outing.
There still seems to be a long way to go before we see Jason Bourne again on the big screen, but fans of the franchise will certainly be interested to catch up on Damon’s character after a decade-long absence. However, it seems unlikely that we will ever get to see Renner’s character return again for a second bite of the cherry, even with the actor getting back to work following his near-fatal snowplow accident in January 2023.
