Note that I wrote most of this story focusing on the angle that Damon is leaving the door open to return to the Bourne franchise, and explaining his beef with the current writer/director. Then I listened to the full interview and he gave more quotes about Brad and Angelina, yet again. So if you’re interested in that part of the story and don’t give a whit about Bourne, you can skip to the end, the part after the second line.

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I love KCRW’s The Business, and I often download the podcast, (I’m like Britta) so this interview with Matt Damon, which aired yesterday, was a treat. On The Business, Damon explained why he made those comments to GQ trashing the Bourne screenwriter and he said that he’d love to reprise his role.

To recap – in GQ Damon was quoted as saying that screenwriter Tony Gilroy handed in a script for Bourne Ultimatum (the third movie, he also wrote the other two and the upcoming fourth, starring Jeremy Renner as another spy) that was “unreadable.” Damon said “I don’t blame Tony for taking a boatload of money and handing in what he handed in. It’s just that it was unreadable. This is a career-ender. I mean, I could put this thing up on eBay and it would be game over for that dude. It’s terrible. It’s really embarrassing. He was having a go, basically, and he took his money and left.” Later in that GQ article, the journalist explained that Damon called him up afterwards and tried to smooth over his statements. Damon said “If I didn’t respect [Gilroy] and appreciate his talent, then I really wouldn’t have cared.. My feelings were hurt. That’s all. And that’s exactly why I shouldn’t have said anything..” Only of course GQ still ran those quotes, because they were awesome.

On The Business, Damon gave the background for why he said all that about Gilroy: he was filming another movie that just happened to be right next to the offices for the fourth Bourne film. Gilroy is both writing and directing this version, which Damon clearly considers a travesty. He’s loyal to director Paul Greengrass (who also has issues with Gilroy) and has said that he’ll do another Bourne movie only when Greengrass is on board.

In a radio interview with this reporter for KCRW’s The Business, Damon explains that he was caught off guard in Vancouver on the set of his next film, Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium, when he found himself next to the just-opened offices for The Bourne Legacy, the fourth movie in the franchise, which is being written and directed by Gilroy — and has no role for Damon.

Those offices “opened up right outside my trailer,” says Damon. “I was seeing this every day, and then I came back to New York and did this interview and kind of blurted it out. … It was idiotic of me to say anything. At the end of the day, it’s between me and Tony, and we’ll figure it out or we won’t.”

The sight of that office was so disturbing because of a deep years-long rift over who is the true keeper of the Bourne flame: Greengrass, who directed the second and third films to ever-growing grosses, or Gilroy, who has been a writer on every Bourne. As a result, it is not clear that Damon ever will reprise the Jason Bourne role, though he says that’s what he wants to do.

The first Bourne film, directed by Doug Liman, was a deeply troubled production, and Gilroy, along with producer Frank Marshall, pulled it back from the brink. But when Greengrass came on to direct 2004′s Bourne Supremacy, he and Gilroy began to loathe each other. “Paul and Tony have clashing styles,” says a source with knowledge of the conflict. “Tony does all the work before and delivers a finished script. Paul wants the script to be ever-evolving during shooting.” But Damon believes the director is king, and his loyalty was and is to Greengrass.

So Gilroy would not even have worked on 2007′s Bourne Ultimatum, except Greengrass couldn’t develop a script in the time allotted. And the clock was ticking: Not only had author Robert Ludlum’s estate imposed a timetable, but also the studio did not want to let Bourne disappear for too long. “It was an important franchise,” says Stacey Snider, then chairman of Universal. “We went to Tony and said, ‘Can you come up with something?’”

Gilroy did, and though Damon bashed him for walking away after writing one (allegedly lousy) draft, several sources including Snider say Gilroy had made it clear that he would do only one draft and possibly a revision because he was committed to his directing debut, Michael Clayton.

Damon’s allegation that the draft was “unreadable” is something that Snider and others dispute. Universal co-chairman Donna Langley says she was “thrilled with the script Tony submitted and greenlit the film based on that script.” (Greengrass subsequently brought in other writers, including Scott Z. Burns and George Nolfi, who were awarded credit alongside Gilroy.)

Bourne Ultimatum grossed a robust $443 million worldwide, and Universal naturally wanted another movie. The studio had backed Greengrass in making the $100 million-plus bomb Green Zone with Damon in hope of keeping them on board for the next Bourne. But again, Greengrass failed to come up with a workable script in the time
allotted.

In November 2009, with Greengrass still uncommitted, top Universal brass — Ron Meyer, Adam Fogelson and Langley — flew to New York, took Damon to dinner and explained that they wanted to move ahead. Damon said that for him, there was no Bourne without Greengrass.

After that, says Langley, the Ludlum estate turned again to Gilroy, who had an idea for a script. This one would focus on another agent (Jeremy Renner) but leave the door ajar for Damon’s character to return. To Damon’s camp, this seemed like good news because Universal had considered pulling a “Bond,” simply replacing Damon in the lead.

Fast-forward to October 2010, when news broke that Gilroy would write and direct the next movie. No one from Universal had informed Damon that Greengrass was being replaced by his old adversary. The studio has not discussed it with him since. “It certainly wasn’t an omission for any reason,” says Langley. “You just have to move on with your business.” For now, she adds, “the franchise can live on [with Renner]. If at some point it can include Matt Damon, fantastic. If it can’t, we’re reconciled to that.”

Damon says he fully expects to return to Bourne. “I think if [Bourne Legacy] doesn’t work, we can just ignore it and pretend it didn’t happen, and that’d be fine,” he says. “But I expect that it will work and only help us if we did another one, which I’d love to do.”

[From The Hollywood Reporter]

To me the takeaway from this is that Damon really cares about Bourne, that he’s committed to that character, and that he’s open to doing another one. Whether that will ever happen given the complicated issues between director Greengrass and the studio remains to be seen. It is to Universal’s credit that they didn’t just replace his character with another actor. They’re going to make bank either way, and there’s no other Bourne than Damon.

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There’s more in Damon’s interview with The Business, including how Cameron Crowe wooed him to play the lead in We Bought a Zoo. (Crowe brought Damon his intended soundtrack and a film called Local Hero that he wanted to capture the mood of.) Damon also talked about Brad and Angelina yet again and added Aniston in there for good measure. The dude has talking points. I’ve heard him repeat himself several times in this press tour. (He told the same story about a young barista in Starbucks to both Parade and on The Today Show.) So I don’t think he is fixated on Brad and Angelina so much as he just says the same things over and over again. (He also repeated on The Business the same thing he said on The Piers Morgan show about coming to terms with fame.)

On the paparazzi and Brad and Angelina
When there’s potential sex or scandal, that’s really what sells those magazines. My life now is so normal that it’s not really worth their money. They go after the picture that’s going to make the money. If you look at Brad and Angie, they’re not doing anything to encourage it and yet what these magazines do is they just make up new stories about Brad and Angelina and Aniston and like, that marriage ended 6,7, 8 years ago. I don’t know, but they just try to keep it going so those pictures are worth something. But in my case there’s just, I really lucked out. I fell in love with a woman who’s not in the business… When you have two actors who are kind of in the spotlight that really increases things.

On Ben Affleck’s tabloid predicament after J.Lo
That was horrible. During that time, talking to him, he was very… sober about what it meant for his career. He knew that it meant he was going into the penalty box for an undetermined amount of time. The worse place you could be is where you’re selling magazines instead of movie tickets. That’s really purgatory, it’s really tough to get out of that. The good news is that what it took for him to get out of there, was what it took for us to get our careers going in the first place. We had to write our way into the game. He had to do it again. With Gone Baby Gone, he wrote that and it was beautiful and he directed that… That still didn’t break him out of jail. He did Hollywoodland and he still couldn’t get out, so he finally did The Town. He wrote that, directed it and starred in it because it was the best acting job he could get, and he was great. And the movie was great, and now it looks like he’s back on the list.

[From KCRW's The Business]

We get it, Damon has a happy family, is a devoted husband and father and he’s above rapproach. I hope that’s true. I hope Lainey’s blind item about Cuba is in no way about him. Or if it is, that it’s not true. He’s awesome, even if he’s like a cranky old dude who tells the same stories every time you see him.

We have to start with the caveat that Renner is not playing Jason Bourne, he’s playing another lead assassin spy character so that they can continue this successful franchise without relying on Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass. Greengrass had some issues with Universal after going way over budget for The Green Zone. Damon is loyal to Greengrass, and while he’s vacillated on whether he’ll do another Bourne movie his latest comments have him leaving the door open as long as Greengrass comes back to direct. So that hasn’t happened yet and they need to get the ball rolling on this sequel reboot nonsense so they can cash in on the Bourne name.

We’ve heard casting rumors for a while, including that Shia “mommy issues” Labeouf was in talks for the alterna-Bourne role. Thank goodness that’s not happening. We now have confirmation of the rumor that Jeremy Renner is the new lead:

The search is over. Universal Pictures has formally offered Jeremy Renner the lead role in the Tony Gilroy-directed The Bourne Legacy. Renner, who has been nominated for Oscars the past two years for his work in The Hurt Locker and The Town, is expected to sign on quickly to play a new character in the spinoff film that begins production in September. Like the Jason Bourne character played by Matt Damon in the first three The Bourne Identity thrillers, Renner will play an operative from a covert government program that is even more dangerous than the Treadstone brainwashing program that hatched Bourne.

Renner was one of the names rumored as the studio went through two cycles of tests over eight weeks to find the right guy. That decision was made today. Even though Renner plays an operative in the upcoming Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol, the studio felt clearly that he was in a position similar to where Damon was when his career took off with Bourne. Renner is not a kid, but he is really hitting his stride and poised to become a big star after numerous strong performances.

[From Deadline]

As Kaiser wrote when she first covered this rumor, the series is named Bourne. It’s about one character, that’s his last name (his new last name) and yet somehow they’re putting some other spy in there and giving us a spinoff. How are they going to present that? They’re going to need to be creative about branding and making Renner’s character into his own kick-ass guy. That said, he’s a great choice. He’s can easily show the same kind of dual humanity and “take no prisoners” persona that Damon embodies because he’s a fabulous actor. He won’t fill Damon’s shoes though, and it’s a good thing they’re not trying to do that. It’s going to be a bitch to try and do justice to this incredible series with a fourth movie and a new character, but I hope they at least try.

Jeremy Renner is shown on 2/27/11 at the VF Oscar Party. Credit: WENN and Fame. Bourne photos via AllMoviePhoto

Jason Bourne is not amused.

I found it surprising that Matt Damon was supposedly up for another Bourne movie, because he hinted while doing promotion for the third one that he was through. When asked if he would play Bourne again, he said “When I did the first movie, I was 29 years old. I am 37 now, and after a tough fighting scene, the next day you wake up and feel your body more. That’s just the way it is.”

Now there’s news that Damon was probably on board for another film in the incredibly successful action series, but that the director has quit and this brings his participation up to question. Director Paul Greengrass, who worked with Damon on the last two Bourne films and recently completed that Iraq war thriller Green Zone starring Damon, has reportedly resigned due to differences with Universal studios. Greengrass has a kind of free-wheeling exploratory approach to filmmaking and this can get incredibly expensive for the studio. Green Zone is rumored to have cost a whopping $150 million to make.

The Playlist reports that Greengrass has withdrawn from the fourth film after Universal tried to get him to reign in costs. They also supposedly hired another screenwriter without consulting with him first and still don’t have a completed script. I’ve never heard of this blog The Playlist but their story is convincing and they claim to have a source that says that the director has all but left and that Universal is trying to keep it quiet. It’s possible Universal and Greengrass will work things out, though, as there’s a ton of money at stake:

We honestly figured someone like Nikki Finke would be breaking this before us (and our source was a little surprised as well), but she’s been a little AWOL of late which leaves the door open.

Sources and friends close to the project tells us that Paul Greengrass has quit “Bourne 4″ and walked away from the project. This actually happened more than a week ago, and we’ve been getting our ducks in a row before publishing this report (and again, we’re shocked Finke or the Wrap didn’t get wind of this yet and way before us).

If you’ve been following our Bourne reports of late, you know we’ve been hinting towards trouble on this project for some time now, but it’s not hard to discern even as an outsider.

Two scripts have been written for the project, which is not exactly a vote of confidence. One penned by George Nolfi (who co-wrote ‘Bourne 3′ and is currently busy working with Matt Damon on “The Adjustment Bureau”), and a few months ago, Universal hired another scribe, Josh Zetumer, to write what they are diplomatically calling a “parallel” script. Zetumer has been a Black List favorite for several years, and has “The Infiltrator” in development with Leonard DiCaprio’s company, Appian Way, and wrote Peter Berg’s “Dune” — he is hot to say the least.

A small part of the problem? Greengrass, who has been busy toiling away on “Green Zone,” was not consulted by Universal in the hiring of a new writer. This obviously did not make him happy, but that’s only part of the issue that’s been ongoing for some time (meanwhile, no one seems to love Nolfi’s version).

Matt Damon has already said that “Green Zone,” another Universal film that Greengrass directed, cost $100 million to make. But the price tag of this Iraq War-set thriller is actually much closer to $150 million — Greengrass has reshot several times (gets expensive) and has been tinkering away in the editing room for months spending Universal’s money and testing their patience. This was supposed to be a smaller movie that Greengrass made in between ‘Bourne’ films, something Universal let Greengrass make to keep him happy and part of the Uni/Bourne family, but you can bet when he said, “(expensive) Iraq War thriller,” the studio wasn’t exactly jazzed, even if Matt Damon was the star.

Going further back, “The Bourne Ultimatum” was a huge hit, obviously, but again was made in a similar fashion: very expensive and lots of reshoots because no screenplay was finished. Greengrass is now infamous for “finding the movie” or “figuring it all out” during the middle of production. As in, shooting lots of various things and letting the story naturally and organically come to the surface. He’s fine with continuing that approach on “Bourne 4,” but after the “Green Zone” expense, the buttoning-up of budgets across the board and the major overhead of ‘Bourne 3′ (that had to be a huge hit to be successful), Universal does not want to take that risk once again and the studio and director have been butting heads on that point ever since. Considering everything Greengrass did with the Bourne franchise, he hasn’t been happy how he’s been treated on “Green Zone” and how hard the studio has been riding him. It seems like the straw has finally broken the camel’s back.

So right now, they’re citing “creative differences” and we expect this to hit the trades at any moment.

There’s chatter about this all around CAA, and Universal surely doesn’t want word to get out. The conventional wisdom is that Greengrass and Universal can kiss and make up and in a few months they could be right back at it, but as a rather famous director said this weekend, “So, I guess they’re looking for a new ‘Bourne’ director, huh?”

What’s Matt Damon’s take on this? He’s “loyal to Paul” which means he’s likely not going to star in any “Bourne 4″ film without him. Or at least not without his blessing and even then, it would have to be a spectacular script (and right now one of those doesn’t exist, but Universal has been exploring other options….).

[From The Playlist, thanks to Kaiser for the tip]

There’s more at the source, including the news that Comcast is planning a buyout of Universal. Supposedly Comcast called Damon’s agent to see if he was doing another Bourne film as that factors into how much the deal is worth.

I really enjoy the Bourne movies and I would love to see another one, but with so many issues it doesn’t seem likely. Even if everything gets worked out amicably between Greengrass and Universal, filming isn’t likely to start for another year and a half. Damon’s heart isn’t in it, either, or he would be making more positive statements about the series. It’s kind of sad, because there’s no other action franchise that’s half as smart or entertaining as Bourne.

The good news is, I just watched the trailer for Green Zone and it’s like Bourne goes to Iraq. A loyal fighter discovers that the organization he’s working for is the real enemy and ends up trying to take them down. I’ll definitely be watching this one. Green Zone is out in the US on March 12, 2010.

Update: Greengrass has confirmed that he’s off the project, and issued a statement that reads, in part, “My decision to not return a third time as director is simply about feeling the call for a different challenge. There’s been no disagreement with Universal Pictures.”

Here’s the trailer for Green Zone:

Here are Damon and Greengrass on the set of The Bourne Ultimatum. There are also some stills from Green Zone. Pictures via AllMoviePhoto

Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, and Joan Allen star in the latest installment of the excellent Bourne series, The Bourne Ultimatum. Everyone still wants assassin Bourne dead and it looks like he travels all over the world to figure out what happened to him while escaping government agents and hatching a plot to kick their sorry asses.

Here’s the full length trailer:

I love these movies and I can’t wait to see Ultimatum. It’s out in theaters on August 3rd. It doesn’t hurt that Damon stars. Ever since Good Will Hunting I’ve had the biggest crush on that guy.

In a recent interview with Esquire, Damon is quoted as saying that he cultivates a boring personality to keep the media interest in him at bay. He said he would have difficulty coping with the level of fame that his co-star Brad Pitt and his girlfriend Angelina Jolie deal with. He also compared the paparazzi that hound Pitt and Jolie to hungry lions.

Thanks to Allmoviephoto and RottenTomatoes for the movie stills.