It’s been a decade since Doug Liman helmed the spy-actioner The Bourne Identity, but it appears he’s readying a return to the genre.  Deadline reports that Sony has acquired author Olen Steinhauer’s series of novels The Tourist, Nearest Exit, and An American Spy with Liman attached to direct.  Matt Corman and Chris Ord (Covert Affairs) are set to write the screenplay for an adaptation of The Tourist.  The series centers on Milo Weaver, “a burned out spy for a clandestine US intelligence agency that battles global organized crime, terrorists and the like.”  Weaver’s happiness is threatened when an investigation into the death of a target he’s been hunting begins.

The story feels like familiar territory for Liman, but he made two entertaining action-thrillers with Bourne and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, so it’s reasonable to assume he’d bring the same enthusiasm to this material.  He’s next set to direct the sci-fi actioner All You Need Is Kill with Tom Cruise, but with Corman and Ord just now getting to work on the script it may be some time before we see The Tourist move forward.