No offense to Aaron Cross and his chems, but if we have to have another Bourne movie, I'm glad it's with Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass.  After years of Damon refusing to do a sequel without Greengrass to the point where Universal threw up their hands and decided to reboot the franchise, the duo is returning.  Furthermore, they're going to be writing the script along with Christopher Rouse, who doesn't have a writing credit but has edited all of Greengrass' movies since The Bourne Ultimatum, which is perfect since Greengrass is known for finding the movie in the editing room anyway.

Universal has also announced that the "Untitled Next Bourne Chapter" (kind of a mouthful there, Universal) will be released on July 29, 2016.  Hit the jump for more.

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Image via Universal Pictures

It's worth noting that this will be the first Bourne movie without the involvement of Tony Gilroy, who is credited with the screenplay for all four Bourne movies, and he also directed The Bourne Legacy.  However, in 2011, Damon slammed Gilroy's Bourne Ultimatum script, telling GQ:

"It's really the studio’s fault for putting themselves in that position," Damon tells GQ. "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."

Damon quickly apologized, although he didn't retract his statement regarding the quality of the script.  But again, script isn't so much an afterthought in a Greengrass movie as much as it's a broad outline, and I'm a little surprised it's taken this long to officially credit his editor as a co-writer.

As for where this "next Bourne chapter" will take the character, I'm curious but also cautious.  The Bourne Ultimatum is such a terrific conclusion to the character's arc, and it was also a very sharp piece of political commentary regarding the War on Terror.  If Greengrass still wants to make a political statement, there's no shortage of material—spying on Americans; secret torture programs; drone strikes—and it will be interesting to see where a Bourne story fits in at the end of the Obama Administration as opposed to Ultimatum, which came near the end of the Bush Administration.

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Image via Universal