How do you make a Jason Bourne film without Matt Damon? There are a couple of options: you can remake the first film, or you can spin-off in a new direction.  What’s most frustrating about The Bourne Legacy is that it takes a third option, which is to pretend that Damon is actually a character in this world, but he’s just not on screen.  Perhaps Universal was stuck between a rock and a hard place. They couldn’t kill Damon off-camera, and they probably hope he’ll come back for more, so instead they brought in Jeremy Renner for a story that runs in parallel to the end of The Bourne Ultimatum, but doesn’t do anything to move the franchise forward.  It is also pretty bad. Our review of the Blu-ray of The Bourne Legacy follows after the jump.

When it was first announced that the Bourne franchise would be undergoing a reboot without Matt Damon or the Jason Bourne character, fans wondered whether this meant the end of Damon’s Bourne films.  The actor remained optimistic that he could eventually return to the series one day with director Paul Greengrass, who helmed The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, so everyone remained optimistic that we’d see a proper sequel to Ultimatum someday.  Screenwriter Tony Gilroy took over directing duties for the spin-off of sorts, The Bourne Legacy, setting up a story that overlapped with the events of Ultimatum but focused on a new character played by Jeremy Renner who had an obsessive fixation on chems.

Throughout the development of Legacy, Damon still maintained that he might return to the franchise at some point, and Gilroy made it clear that he hoped to team Damon and Renner up in a future installment.  Well now all of that seems unlikely, as Damon recently revealed that he probably won’t be reprising the Jason Bourne character again.  Hit the jump for more.

Now playing is writer/director Tony Gilroy’s The Bourne Legacy.  For those unfamiliar with the franchise reboot, this time around, a government task force led by Edward Norton‘s character is assassinating all their genetically-modified assets to prevent another Bourne situation.  However, one member of the program, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), manages to escape with a scientist (Rachel Weisz), and the two go on the run for their lives.  The film also stars Oscar Isaac, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Albert Finney, Stacy Keach, Scott Glenn, Corey Stoll, and Donna Murphy.  For more on the film, here are five clips and all our previous coverage.

During the recent Los Angeles press day, I did an exclusive interview with Tony Gilroy.  During our extended conversation we talked about the making of Bourne Legacy, sequels, his writing process, creating new and exciting action scenes, IMAX, 3D, deleted scenes, what will be on the Blu-ray, whether the next sequel would still have “Bourne” in the title, if he has scripts ready to shoot, and a lot more.  Hit the jump for what he had to say.

The Bourne franchise is at a crossroads. Does the success of each movie depend on Matt Damon, or can Universal turn Bourne into Bond, an evergreen series that rotates in fresh blood every few movies? To explore that question, I tried to capture how the series has evolved over the last decade with Bourne by the Numbers. The feature provides a numbers-based snapshot of each movie and its place in the filmography by looking at the box office, critical reception, and miscellaneous facts.

Hit the jump for a comprehensive review of the Bourne movies, featuring The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, and The Bourne Legacy.

Opening tomorrow is writer/director Tony Gilroy’s The Bourne Legacy.  For those unfamiliar with the franchise reboot, this time around, a government task force led by Edward Norton‘s character is assassinating all their genetically-modified assets to prevent another Bourne situation.  However, one member of the program, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), manages to escape with a scientist (Rachel Weisz), and the two go on the run for their lives.  The film also stars Oscar Isaac, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Albert Finney, Stacy Keach, Scott Glenn, Corey Stoll, and Donna Murphy.  For more on the film, here are five clips.

During the recent Los Angeles press day, I did an exclusive interview with producer Patrick Crowley.  If you’re a fan of the Bourne films and want to hear some great behind the scenes stories about all four movies, you’re in the right place.  During our extended conversation we talked about the making of Bourne Legacy, did they ever consider 3D, Easter Eggs, test screenings, will future Bourne movies have Bourne in the title, coming up with new and exciting action scenes, deleted scenes, reshoots,  and so much more.  Hit the jump for what he had to say.

Director Paul Greengrass created what it meant to be a “Bourne” movie with The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum.  If the James Bond movies are girls, gadgets, cars, and supervillains, then Bourne was going to be about intense action scenes, desperate chases, paranoia, and political commentary.  Sadly, Greengrass did not return to the Bourne franchise, and co-writer and director Tony Gilroy has set the series back with the flabby and forgettable The Bourne Legacy.  Gilroy attempts to write his own set of rules by playing against a traditional three-act structure, which is fine in theory, but in practice it creates a film that’s constantly losing momentum, and never sure where to focus its energy.  The movie’s saving grace is Jeremy Renner, who gets to be in the mold of Jason Bourne but find new strengths and weaknesses that set him apart from the eponymous spy.  Sadly, the rest of The Bourne Legacy never follows Renner’s lead to find a fresh direction while still retaining what worked about the past two movies.

[With The Bourne Legacy set to open this Friday, we'll be taking a look back at the original Bourne trilogy.  These reviews will contain spoilers since the movies have been out for years.  Click here for my review of The Bourne Identity.]

The identity of the Bourne franchise begins in the third act of The Bourne Identity.  It’s when the character’s strengths and weaknesses begin to arise, and The Bourne Supremacy director Paul Greengrass took note of where not only the character was going, but where America was going.  The Bourne Identity came out in June 2002, and the sense of our country’s post-9/11 world was still hazy.  By the time The Bourne Supremacy arrived on July 23, 2004, the reverberations were clear.  We had been led into a war based on faulty intelligence that was cherry-picked so that we could attack a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.  Greengrass wasn’t obligated to insert the subtext into his spy thriller, but he was savvy enough to leave the political commentary simmering underneath an intense action flick that not only boosted Matt Damon‘s credibility as a kick-ass hero, but found a way to use hand-held cinematography to its full effect rather than a lazy shortcut.

Five clips and over 15 new images from writer/director Tony Gilroy’s The Bourne Legacy have been released.  For those unfamiliar with the franchise reboot, this time around, a government task force led by Edward Norton‘s character is assassinating all their genetically-modified assets to prevent another Bourne situation.  However, one member of the program, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), manages to escape with a scientist (Rachel Weisz), and the two go on the run for their lives.  It’s clear that there’s some timeline overlap between Legacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, so I’m eager to see how everything fits together in the finished film.

Hit the jump to check out the clips and images.  The film also stars Oscar Isaac, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Albert Finney, Stacy Keach, Scott Glenn, Corey Stoll, and Donna Murphy.  The Bourne Legacy opens on August 10th.

Three new TV spots for The Bourne Legacy have gone online.  Despite the constant need to remind audiences that this is still a Bourne movie in lieu of Matt Damon’s absence, the footage actually looks pretty good.  It’s reassuring to know that Tony Gilroy, who scripted the three previous Bourne movies, is taking over the franchise.  I’m a fan of his past directorial efforts (Michael Clayton, Duplicity), and hopefully he can maintain the character-centered tone of the other Bourne films while providing a fresh and engaging story that stands on its own.  This footage hammers home the idea that Jeremy Renner’s character is some kind of genetic supersoldier, and I’m eager to see how Legacy‘s story plays out within the universe of the first three films.

Hit the jump to watch the TV spots.  The film also stars Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Albert Finney, Joan Allen, Scott Glenn, Stacy Keach, and Oscar Isaac.  The Bourne Legacy opens on August 10th.

Fans of the Bourne movies may finally get to see which action star is better: Matt Damon or Jeremy Renner.  In a recent interview, The Bourne Legacy producer Frank Marshall commented about a potential follow-up film as follows:

“My dream is that in the next one we see Matt and Jeremy team up.”

While that may certainly be an unstoppable duo (or a clash of titans, depending upon their alliance), audiences will have to wait until August 10th to see Renner step into Damon’s shoes.  The Bourne Legacy was recently pushed back a week due to fear of competing for audiences with Total Recall and, more likely, a desire to step out from under the shadow of The Dark Knight Rises. Hit the jump for more from Marshall, Renner and director Tony Gilroy, in addition to new images of Renner as Aaron Cross in The Bourne Legacy.

A new trailer for The Bourne Legacy has gone online. Rather than just a reboot, this feels like a direct sequel with Jason Bourne’s actions from the previous films creating the conflict for the new movie.  This time around, a government task force led by Edward Norton‘s character is assassinating all their genetically-modified assets to prevent another Bourne situation.  However, one member of the program (Jeremy Renner) manages to escape with a scientist (Rachel Weisz), and the two go on the run for their lives.  There are some cool stunts in the trailer, but I want to see more of the characters’ personalities rather than just the conspiracy/chase angle.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film also stars Albert Finney, Joan Allen, Scott Glenn, Stacy Keach, and Oscar Isaac.  The Bourne Legacy opens August 3rd.

The summer movie season is getting ready to kick off with The Avengers early next month, but a new image from one of the hotly anticipated films that will close the summer movie season has now gone online.  This new image from The Bourne Legacy gives us our first look at Edward Norton in the villain role, and writer-director Tony Gilroy recently sat down to talk about how Legacy is connected to the other films in the series, and how he’s setting the movie up as a stand-alone entry in the franchise with a wholly different lead character.

Hit the jump to check out the image and to see what awaits us come this August.

The first trailer and poster for The Bourne Legacy have gone online.  The central message of the trailer is this: Jeremy Renner can kick the shit out of people just as well as Matt Damon. It’s clearly the same Bourne flavor, and audiences will be happy to get another great actor beating up bad guys. The editing moves so fast that it’s tough to tell how much writer-director Tony Gilroy‘s style will differ from Paul Greengrass‘ (who directed Supremacy and Ultimatum), but I’m eager to see what Gilroy has in store.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer and poster.  The film also stars Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Stacy Keach, Oscar Isaac, Albert Finney, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, and Scott Glenn.  The Bourne Legacy opens August 3rd.

While writer/director Tony Gilroy’s The Bourne Legacy may be a sort of spin-off of the franchise, the film won’t be without some familiar faces. Showblitz reports that Joan Allen and Albert Finney are currently in negotiations to reprise their roles in the new film. Jeremy Renner stars in Legacy as an operative trained in the same program that housed the first trilogy’s title character played by Matt Damon.

Allen appeared in The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum as a CIA agent attempting to capture Damon’s character, while Finney played a doctor employed by the government program in Ultimatum. New faces alongside Renner in Legacy include Rachel Weisz and Oscar Issacs, with Edward Norton still in talks to play the villain of the film. The Bourne Legacy opens August 3^rd, 2012.

Director Tony Gilroy is looking to cast a big name as the villain in The Bourne Legacy, with Variety reporting that Edward Norton is now in negotiations to take on the role. After a lengthy casting search, the powers-that-be finally settled on Jeremy Renner take on the lead role in the Matt Damon-less reboot. Gilroy wrote the script for the film, which will take place in the same universe as the first three Bourne Identity flicks, though the character of Jason Bourne will be absent (which pretty much renders the “Bourne” in the title moot, save for franchise recognition). Rachel Weisz is also onboard to star in the film. Hit the jump for more.