Paul Greengrass Says Farewell To BOURNE 4

Bam! And just like that today’s big surprise just hit you like a brick wall. The Playlist has reported that Paul Greengrass is, for now, not attached to the fourth BOURNE movie anymore. It’s a bit of a shocker if you ask me because after working on the second and third movie, it’s a bit tough to imagine this franchise without Greengrass’ involvement. Theories on why he left the project circle around the script and the possible expensive post-production budget for his new movie THE GREEN ZONE…

Matt Damon once said that he’d only do another BOURNE Movie if Greengrass is also on board, now that the Oscar nominated director (United 93) is out, it’s safe to say that Damon’s enthusiasm is the same amount that Johnny Depp showed when he heard Dick Cook left Disney, which is not enthusiastic at all.
If you ask me, after watching the intense domestic trailer for THE GREEN ZONE, they might as well have called that movie THE BOURNE 4.

Just a quick flashback, shall we, THE BOURNE 4 is not based on Robert Ludlum’s novels, Universal Pictures wanted the fourth installment to be released in 2011, and George Nolfi (The Sentinel) has written the initial script but the problem was that he’s also attached to writing another thriller titled THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU also starring Matt Damon. So the studio’s solution was to hire Josh Zetumer to write THE BOURNE 4. They called this strategy a parallel script. Zetumer was going to write a new script but no word yet if his version will be integrated into Nolfi’s, because Universal still wants Nolfi back to BOURNE after he’s done with THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU.

Now the current problems, Greengrass, was not consulted by Universal about the hiring of a new writer and he’s pissed. Greengrass and Universal’s relationship got even rockier because THE GREEN ZONE which was supposed to be just an in-between project for Greengrass before he returns to BOURNE (kind of like Nolan doing The Prestige in-between Batman Begins and TDK) has now gotten even more expensive in its post-production than initially expected, so the studio’s pissed.

So right now, the website calls Paul Greengrass‘ leaving BOURNE 4 on account of “creative differences”.
Maybe this is for the best, just because there’s going to be Underworld 4, Pirates Of The Carribeans 4 and Resident Evil 4 means we need to have BOURNE 4 as well. What happened to the good old way of ending it as trilogy anyway?