It was kind of a head-scratcher when it was first announced that Universal would be making another Jason Bourne movie that didn’t have Matt Damon in it. How do you make a movie about Jason Bourne without Jason Bourne? The plan seems to be to keep the action happening in the same universe that it previously in Damon’s three movies, but to introduce another operative as our protagonist. That’s a dumb idea. Why not just make a different movie called something else?
Stupid ideas aside, The Bourne Legacy managed to get a great actor in Jeremy Renner to play the new operative, so maybe it won’t be all that bad. It still leaves a lot of question up in the air, though. Who is Renner’s new character going to be? Is this movie going to look like the original Bourne movies, all gritty and handheld?
Well, when recently talking with Empire, Renner managed to cough up some details about the new movie, and while revealing, it all sounds like pretty typical sequel speak. When asked about the tone of the new film, he confirmed that, “Yeah, it’s that same deal, it’s just a new set of agents with a different leash. It’s the same tempo and pace but more expansive and bigger. The differences are pretty vast but you’ll know it’s a Bourne movie.” I think there’s some sort of clause that gets put in your contract when you sign on for a sequel that you have to talk about how it’s going to be bigger. It’s like the Walmart theory of promoting.
So who is this new guy that’s taking Bourne’s place? “My character is called Aaron Cross,” says Renner, “but he ends up having a bunch of different names. For fans of the franchise, [The Bourne Legacy] has that same ticking clock, but it’s a new programme and new characters.” Sounds mysterious. Does his multiple names mean that we’ve got some sort of Martha Marcy May Marlene story going on where “Cross” has to slip into different identities? Or perhaps does the character have a mysterious past that we will learn about over the course of the film? Maybe this Aaron Cross is really Bourne’s little brother and Legacy will lead into the spy game version of a Warrior storyline. The two secret agents are BROTHERS!
