'The Bourne Legacy' Minus The Bourne?

Speculation about what a fourth film in the Bourne series would look like has been ongoing since June when it was announced Tony Gilroy would be penning the new sequel.  Speculation like would Paul Greengrass come back to direct after openly leaving the project in February?  Would Matt Damon star after insisting he wouldn't do another Bourne film without Greengrass at the helm?  Would we be seeing a prequel or even a reboot?

Earlier this week we got a few answers as news broke that Gilroy would also be directing his script for The Bourne Legacy.  But what does that mean for Damon or his titular character?  The answer:  they don't need 'em.  At least not for this film anyway.

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'Bourne 4' Back On, But Will Matt Damon Return?

This could be just the thing to light the fire under Matt Damon to return as Jason Bourne. Tony Gilroy, who wrote and directed Michael Clayton and Duplicity but made his mark co-writing the entire Bourne trilogy, has been hired by Universal to write the fourth chapter, which Deadline says will be called The Bourne Legacy.

There's a Bourne Legacy book, commissioned by Robert Ludlum's estate but written by Eric Lustabader, but this won't have anything to do with that. And it won't be a prequel, which was the remedy when Paul Greengrass walked off the project and Matt Damon said he wouldn't make another Bourne without Greengrass.

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Paul Greengrass Completely Done With Jason Bourne

It was a few months ago when that fourth Jason Bourne reversed field with the sudden departure of director Paul Greengrass. Who knows if there really was friction between Greengrass and Universal - he has maintained since December that there wasn't - but he sure is gone.

And now Greengrass tells CHUD that he's gone for good. "I have moved on," Greengrass says. "I finished [Green Zone] in July, had the summer off, and I came back and thought I could find a way to get engaged and make [a fourth Bourne film], [but] I thought in my head there were so many other things and films I wanted to make. I didn't have the fire in my belly."

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Fourth 'Bourne' Movie To Be a Prequel?

For once, I think the logic for a fourth Jason Bourne movie is sound. I never really got on board with another Matt Damon-Paul Greengrass flick, outside of just believing they'd do good work with it, because the story seemed to have a natural conclusion at the end of The Bourne Ultimatum. And, as I've said many times, it's really tough to beat that trilogy; there's really no dead spots.

So continuing the same way would be profitable but unnecessary. Now Damon tells Empire that the producers might go a completely different direction, no doubt sparked by the departure of Greengrass several months ago. “There’ll probably be a prequel of some kind with another actor and another director before we do another one,” Damon said, “just because I think we’re probably another five years away from doing it – we’ve got to get a script.”

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'Sight & Sound' Names Its Top 30 of the Decade

If you're of a more critical mind, the annual Sight & Sound movie list - and its list of the all-time greatest films as judged by journalists and directors revised every decade - is required reading. Here is the Sight & Sound alphabetical list of the 30 best films of the past ten years.

Admittedly, these aren't all familiar names, Oscar winners, or blockbusters. In fact, exactly one movie made a ton of money or was geared for wide audiences, and while it might really stand out against the other titles here, there's no doubt it's a fantastic film. There are a few others I was happy to see, like Touching the Void, Adaptation., Kiarostami's Ten, and Spirited Away. I'll leave it up to you to evaluate the merits of the list if you want to. With all of these, I just like to see what the writers are thinking. Obviously, if there's a lot of agreement, that might mean something. But with almost 5,000 movies in the past ten years, you're not going to get a lot of that. So if you've seen other lists (even ours), I'd say just pick up on those titles you haven't seen and try to track them down.

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