Obviously Jason Bourne and Liberace don’t seem to make obvious bed-fellows and before rumours get started, we are not announcing a Bourne spin-off that segues with a Liberace biopic. Rather, EW recently caught up with Matt Damon while on publicity duties for Clint Eastwood’s latest, Hereafter and he discussed his feelings about the Bourne franchise and his involvement in a (totally separate) Liberace film.
Damon had been quoted in seemingly slightly displeased terms over Tony Gilroy’s intended work on the Bourne franchise, saying that he had not been consulted over the new film and:-
“Universal just wants to call everything the Bourne something.”
It is refreshing therefore to see Damon being given an opportunity to share his thoughts on the development of the franchise and to see that he appears to bear no ill-will towards Gilroy’s film at all:-
I was in a roundtable and they were, like, badgering me about the next Bourne movie. And I was like, “I don’t know, guys, they didn’t call me. They’re doing another movie with Tony.” I think it’s a smart thing to do. It doesn’t interfere with Paul [Greengrass] and me doing a movie. As I understand it, if you think of X-Men and then Wolverine, it’s just that process in reverse. Tony doesn’t want to hurt the Bourne story. So as I understand it, Jason Bourne is alive in the world that Tony’s going to create. I don’t appear in it, but it’s very much that world. As far as Paul and I are concerned, as long as there’s room for us to come in and do another one, we’re thrilled.
Damon goes on to say that he wishes Gilroy well and considers him an A-List director in his own right. Damon also said that it was no surprise to see the Bourne films progressing without him as he and Paul Greengrass had spoken with Universal a year ago and decided not to go with a further film. It was inevitable, Damon says, that Universal would want to keep the films going and find a way to do so without spoiling any chance of Damon and Greengrass returning to the franchise in the future.
EW then moved on to discuss with Damon his upcoming projects and it was in this context that Liberace came up. Damon is working with Steven Soderbergh on Contagion at the moment, before turning his attention to We Built A Zoo with Cameron Crowe. After that, around next summer, comes Liberace with Michael Douglas.
Tantalisingly, Damon finishes his interview by saying that next fall/autumn (2011) he hopes to work again with Paul Greengrass, either on another Bourne film, or something else. If it were another Bourne film, says Damon, they would not want or need to hurry, lest they get in the way of the scheduled release of Gilroy’s The Bourne Legacy. That, says Damon, would give them time to make sure the script was just right.
Gilroy had said that he had planned Legacy to give room for Damon/Bourne to return in a future film and it is nothing short of thrilling to see that Damon and Greengrass are both open to the possibility as well. What do you think?
