Matt Damon: No 'Bourne' Without Paul Greengrass

When Paul Greengrass quit the Bourne franchise last week, that had to cause a few sweat-stained undershirts at Universal. Not necessarily because Greengrass was leaving, although that is a bad situation, but because Matt Damon is so in sync with Greengrass' vision that he might not be willing to continue without the director. There is a chance, of course, that Damon will be allowed to pick a filmmaker to replace Greengrass, someone he's happy and comfortable with...right? Not according to Damon, who told Collider at the Invictus press conference that Bourne goes nowhere without the tag team. "I’ll just wait for [Greengrass] and when he wants to do one, we’ll do it," Damon said, making this week a little worse for Universal. Let's take a look at the numbers: Almost $950 million in global receipts off $240 million spent on production budgets, roughly what the most recent Transformers made. And Universal doesn't have a ton of franchises. Of the top 50 box office movies ever, Universal only has four, and only two have been in the last fifteen years. Not having Bourne 4 hurts tremendously. So, we'll see if this is a money grab for Greengrass, because he clearly has the power to derail the machine here. Perhaps if Green Zone does well, Universal will give him more control and this will get back on track, not that I really want that. They should just stop where they are. Having said that, Damon remains confident that it will happen "down the road." If you're interested in Damon's other upcoming work, Collider asked him about the True Grit remake with the Coens and the Liberace bio-pic he's making with Michael Douglas as the flamboyant Vegas entertainer, a film that will be directed by Steven Soderbergh. Both are happening next year, so at least we'll have those to look forward to.