14 DAY TRIAL // A fourth Jason Bourne film is currently in the making, with Jeremy Renner coming to take over from where Matt Damon left off. In a new interview, Damon explains why he no longer wanted to be a part of the franchise.
Initially, Damon was on board the sequel, even if he said more than once that he felt that he was too old for the part and that almost everything that could be said had already been said.
Later on, after a fall out between the movie studio and director Paul Greengrass, Greengrass left the franchise and Damon chose to do the same.
In doing so, he basically turned his back on a $20 million (€15.17 million) paycheck and the chance to make even more with further sequels – clearly, that's not a decision most actors today would make.
Speaking with GQ, Damon explains that doing a fourth Bourne film simply didn't make any sense to him anymore, so he chose to back out of it while it wasn't too late.
“If you look at the first three movies, we kind of pounded that idea of identity and amnesia into the ground. We really got everything out of it that we could,” he says.
“So to reboot it, we need to come up with something completely new,” Damon adds, hinting that what the movie studio is now working on might not be as “completely new” as they say it is.
Even with all this, Damon is not against the reboot. In fact, he stresses, he's actually rooting for it.
“[I'm] really pulling for this one, even though I don’t have anything to do with it. Selfishly, it’s bad for me if that movie doesn’t do well,” Matt explains with a smile.
“It feels like I can swing freely, like a baseball player – just be relaxed and really do the things that I want to do and not worry, because I know there’s another one out there,” he adds, speaking of the kind of freedom playing Jason Bourne “bought” him.
Still, that doesn't change the way fans feel about another Bourne film: without Matt Damon, there's no Bourne 4.