Matt Damon will be returning to the Bourne franchise in 2016, in a new installment (currently referred to as Bourne 5) that he’s co-writing with his Bourne Supremacyand Bourne Ultimatum director, Paul Greengrass. Producer Frank Marshall recently took some time to talk about the project as part of the ongoing TCA Winter Press Tour, where he also shed light on the current status of 1980s kids adventure sequel, The Goonies 2.
Both a prospective Goonies sequel and a fourth Damon-starring Bourne film made big waves last year, when fresh updates indicated both were on their way to becoming a reality. The next Bourne installment has since gained a lot of forward momentum; just this week, Universal shifted the release date slightly, in anticipation of production starting this year. Meanwhile, there hasn’t been any Goonies 2 news since Gooniesdirector Richard Donner suggested that Steven Spielberg has a story idea for the film.
Marshall, when he was interviewed by Nerd Report and Collider as part of the TCA tour, briefly touched on the challenge of settling on a story for another Jason Bourne-centered film (a task that Damon once turned to Interstellar co-screenwriter Jonathan Nolan for assistance on).
“It was really the challenge of finding the story. If you look back five or six years ago, when we were maybe going on, we just didn’t have a story. It’s taken this long for us to come up with a story that everybody responded to. Now, we’re moving forward.”
However, Marshall once again emphasized that another installment with Jeremy Renner’s Aaron Cross (from The Bourne Legacy) hasn’t been abandoned and that the Bourne franchise is now on “separate tracks.” He also said, in a matter of fact fashion, that “We don’t have plans [for a crossover film]“ right now; though, Marshall didn’t rule out the possibility of Damon and Renner co-anchoring a Bourne movie one day (something he’s also expressed interest in during interviews in years past).
That’s encouraging to hear, since Renner as Cross (complaints about Bourne Legacy‘s shortcomings aside) could make for a compelling foil to Damon in a future adventure set in the Bourne universe. How and/or if that happens, of course, will depend on what happens in Greengrass’ upcoming Bourne film in terms of story development; not to mention, what the reception is like from critics/moviegoers (and, of course, if the box office returns justify producing more Bourne installments thereafter).
Goonies 2, unlike Bourne 5, is still stuck in the earliest stages of development, according to Marshall.
“It’s in discussion. ['Goonies' director Richard Donner] talked to us about it, and we’ve talked to him. It’s all about the story. We don’t just do sequels to do them. The story has to be there.”
Marshall clarified that there isn’t a Goonies 2 script “yet” and that the sequel will only happen if the people involved (himself, Spielberg, Donner) feel it can truly be done “in the Amblin spirit” of the original film. In 2014, it was reported those producers and Chris Columbus (who was the screenwriter on The Goonies) were actively searching for a writer and director to work on the Goonies sequel, but it doesn’t sound like much progress (if any) has been made on that front.
Other belated 1980s movie sequels like Top Gun 2 and Beetlejuice 2 at least have a script being written and/or revised, which puts them one step ahead of The Goonies 2on on the trip down the pipeline. Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean those projects arethat much closer to becoming a real thing than Goonies 2 is… for better or worse.
Bourne 5, however, is scheduled to open in U.S. theaters on July 29th, 2016.
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