Let’s track the progress on the fourth installment of the fourth ‘Bourne’ film.
Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass are onboard if they can make it happen, but it’s still not looking full-steam head.
– Feb 2008, Universal lands Greengrass and Damon for a fourth “Bourne” movie despite the fact that both principals wanted to move on by the time “Bourne Ultimatum” was over.
– Summer 2008, Producer Frank Marshall says they want to shoot Bourne in the summer of 2010 and the plot will likely take them to South America. Screenwriter Tony Gilroy is busy prepping, “Duplicity.”
– October 2008, Universal hires George Nolfi, a co-writer of the ‘Ultimatum’ film, to write the script.
– December 2008, Marshall admits that the only people truly signed on board for the project are he and Nolfi and that the series could go on without Matt Damon if needed.
– February 2008, Distracted? Nolfi is hired to write the Damon sci-fi romance film, “The Adjustment Bureau.” Universal picks it up in March, and Emily Blunt is hired to play the love interest in July which suggests the picture will be shooting soon. Certainly before ‘Bourne 4.’
– April 2009, Marshall, seemingly desperate to keep this thing in the news, says the film will hit theaters Summer 2011.
– Early August, 2009, Damon says the film isn’t exactly on the fast track.
Now: In this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly (not online yet), discussing “The Informant!” his upcoming September black comedy with Steven Soderbergh, Damon says that no screenplay, let alone storyline is completed for ‘Bourne 4.’
“We’re hoping to make a fourth, but we don’t have a story and we don’t have a script. I assume it can happen, but we have to come up with a storyline that’s deserving. I mean, if you see the Bourne character come out again and say, ‘I can’t remember,’ you’re going to get up and leave the theater. It’s like, ‘Get over it, buddy — it’s been three movies. What the fuck?!’ “
Summer 2011 is still a ways off and shooting could be ready for summer 2010, but Damon doesn’t sound convinced that it’s happening anytime soon. It would probably mean a finished screenplay, by what, March 2010, so summer schedules could be cleared? We’ll have to wait and see if they can make it happen. There was a fourth book written, but it wasn’t by Robert Ludlum so producers have suggested they’ll have to invent their own story, but Damon has a point: Jason Bourne finds his memories at the end of ‘Ultimatum,’ so where do you go from here now that he knows his entire story?
I'd heard a studio rumor that Paul Greengrass was going to be fired by Universal. they're v. unhappy with the delays and overblown budget of 'Green Zone' and that Greengrass says he can't start shooting until 2011. George Nolfi turned in a *very lackluster script.
The reason I'm hearing it hasn't happened yet is because so many people are going to get fired in Universal management…so who knows who's going to be running the asylum there.
Matt and the studio want Steven Soderbergh to direct..(he'd previously turned down the gig, but that was before the Moneyball drama and he's made it known he wants to do something 'big and commercial' next) I wouldn't be surprised to hear an announcement that he's set and that Scott Burns will write the script. (Burns previously did rewrite work on all the Bourne films, rewrote Nolfi's Ocean's 12 script and is the sole writer on the upcoming Soderbergh/Damon film The Informant)
Best rumor all day. Email me.
dumping Greengrass for Soderbergh makes sense of Universal…Soderbergh and Damon already have Liberace scheduled to shoot in early 2010..they could do Bourne instead and the always efficient Soderbergh could have it ready for release by Sept 2010.
He could probably even lure buddy Tony Gilroy back to write something awesome. (Gilroy made 5 million for the last bourne screenplay with the stipulationl that he would never have to speak with Greengrass)
I'm sure Whitesell would love for his client to get a good payday in 2010 instead of waiting..this just means Matt would have to tell Paul to beat it..and Matt is beyond the world's nicest guy…that might be tough.