Summary Jeremy Renner and director Justin Lin were going to make a sequel to The Bourne Legacy , but then Matt Damon decided to return to the franchise.
Renner was interested in making a movie that pitted his character, Aaron Cross, against Bourne before the two characters then team up.
Considering the lukewarm reception to The Bourne Legacy and the amount of time that has elapsed since its release, it seems unlikely that Renner will reprise his role as Cross.
Jeremy Renner outlines his unrealized idea for a Matt Damon team-up Jason Bourne movie. Damon first brought his amnesiac assassin character to life in 2002’s The Bourne Identity and would return for two direct sequels, seemingly concluding the character’s story. After it appeared that Damon was done with the role, Renner took center stage in 2011’s The Bourne Legacy as Aaron Cross. Renner and director Justin Lin were poised to make The Bourne Legacy 2, but Damon ultimately then reprised his title role and re-teamed with franchise veteran Paul Greengrass for 2016’s Jason Bourne.
In a recent interview with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Renner reflects on the unmade Bourne Legacy sequel.
The actor reveals that after Damon and Greengrass decided to return, he expressed interest in merging the two characters’ stories together, but that obviously didn’t end up coming to fruition. Check out Renner’s comment below when asked about how far he and Lin got into development on the Bourne Legacy sequel:
“We were getting pretty far, to the point where all of a sudden Greengrass and Damon put one together and that got… Let’s work together! Because we wanted to pivot and try to get both parallel universes together. That was my idea was to get us together. Pit us against each other and then we realize, ‘What are we doing? You and I together can go smash all of them.’ Then you got Bourne and Cross together, you know. That’s a good duo. That would’ve been pretty badass.”
Could Jeremy Renner Return To The Bourne Franchise?
Why It Might Be Unlikely
The Bourne Legacy was met with somewhat mixed reviews. The film currently sports a 56% on Rotten Tomatoes, the second-worst score of the Jason Bourne franchise. The movie was a modest box office success, earning $276.1 million worldwide, but this is the second-lowest of the franchise as well. 2016’s Jason Bourne also earned mixed reviews, but was a bigger box office hit at $415.5 million.
Title Rotten Tomatoes Critics’ Score Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score Worldwide Box Office The Bourne Identity (2002) 84% 93% $214 million The Bourne Supremacy (2004) 82% 90% $290.8 million The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) 92% 91% $444.1 million The Bourne Legacy (2012) 56% 58% $276.1 million Jason Bourne (2016) 54% 55% $415.5 million
Clearly, then, Damon is the more bankable star and his name is largely synonymous with the Bourne franchise. While it seems unlikely that Renner would reprise his role as Cross for a future film, it’s not entirely out of the question. The future of the Bourne franchise, as a whole, is somewhat up in the air at the moment, and it’s not clear what direction things will go in.
Related 8 Biggest Differences Between Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne & Jeremy Renner’s Aaron Cross The two leading men of the Jason Bourne series appear similar, but are in fact very different. Even in the face of danger, their approaches differ.
A new Bourne movie is in development from director Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front), but no story details or casting information has been revealed. Damon has expressed a willingness to return, but nothing is finalized yet, and whether he stars in the film will seemingly depend on the script. While anything is possible, it’s been 12 years since Renner’s crack at the Jason Bourne franchise, and the lukewarm reception to the movie means a Cross and Bourne team up might not be on the cards.
Source: Josh Horowitz