The Bourne Legacy is the only film in the franchise that does not feature the titular character Jason Bourne, as actor Matt Damon chose not to return due to Paul Greengrass not directing. Bourne is shown in pictures and mentioned by name several times throughout the film. Tony Gilroy, co-screenwriter of the first three films, sought to continue the story of the film series without changing its key events, and parts of The Bourne Legacy take place at the same time as the previous film, The Bourne Ultimatum (2007). Aaron Cross is a member of a black ops program called Operation Outcome whose subjects are genetically enhanced. He must run for his life once former CIA Treadstone agent Jason Bourne's actions lead to the public exposure of Operation Treadstone and its successor Operation Blackbriar.
Filming was primarily in New York City, with some scenes shot in the Philippines, South Korea, and Canada. Released on August 10, 2012, the film received mixed reviews and grossed $276 million at the box office. It was followed in 2016 by Jason Bourne, with Damon reprising his role.
Plot
Six weeks after Jason Bourne's escape from Russia after his pursuit with Kirill,[a] Operation Outcome agent Aaron Cross is assigned a training exercise in the Alaskan wilderness as punishment for going AWOL. He must traverse the rugged terrain to find a remote cabin while being stalked by wolves. The cabin is operated by Number Three, another Outcome agent there as punishment. Cross lies and tells Number Three that he has lost his program medication dog tags containing "chems" that Outcome agents must take to maintain their mental and physical enhancements.
Colonel Eric Byer is tasked with containing the fallout from Pam Landy's exposure of Operations Treadstone and Blackbriar.[b] He and his team find several videos of Treadstone and Outcome medical directors Albert Hirsch and Dan Hillcott being together posted online that could lead investigators to Operation Outcome. Byer orders Outcome to be completely shut down and all of the agents and participating doctors killed to protect the secrecy of other clandestine programs.
Byer deploys an armed drone to eliminate Cross and Number Three in Alaska. Number Three is killed when a missile from the drone destroys the cabin, but Cross--who was outdoors when the drone struck--survives. He shoots down the drone with a rifle and removes a subdermal tracking implant from his hip. He traps an aggressive wolf and forces it to swallow his tracker. Another drone targets the tracker and kills the wolf, leading Byer's team to conclude that Cross was killed. At Sterisyn Morlanta, the pharmaceutical company supporting Outcome, researcher Dr. Donald Foite seemingly snaps and methodically shoots down Hillcott and his colleagues who have been working on Outcome. After being cornered by guards, Foite shoots himself, leaving Dr. Marta Shearing as the program's sole survivor.
Cross travels from Alaska to Chicago to recover a stashed car, money, and fake identification. Running low on chems and seeing news that his Outcome provider, Dr. Shearing, had survived the shooting, he drives to her home in Maryland. Meanwhile, Byer sends four D-Trac assassins disguised as federal agents to kill Dr. Shearing and make it look like a suicide. Cross intervenes, kills the assassins, and burns down Dr. Shearing's house to cover their escape. Shearing tells Cross that the program previously used a virus to lock in his physical enhancements, eliminating his need for his physical chems. They plan to fly to the Philippines to obtain a live virus to lock in his mental enhancements since it was impossible to get more mental chems.
Cross and Shearing use false identities to fly to Manila, bluff their way into a pharmaceutical factory where Sterisyn Morlanta has a research lab, and infect Cross with the live virus. Meanwhile, Byer's team find CCTV footage of Shearing at JFK airport and determine her itinerary. Byer alerts the factory's security team, but Cross subdues the security guards, causes a panic on the factory floor; Cross and Shearing escape in the commotion. Cross becomes incapacitated from the virus, so Shearing hides him in an apartment to recover. Byer dispatches LARX#3, a chemically brainwashed super soldier, to kill Cross and Shearing. The next morning, Cross recovers from being injected with the virus. Local police discover Cross and Shearing's hideout, and they escape on foot. The police and the LARX agent chase them by motorcycle through the streets of Manila. They lose the police and Shearing kills the LARX agent, but Cross is shot and loses consciousness. Shearing bribes a nearby boatman to help them escape Manila. Byer and his team, who lost their trail, raid the empty apartment for clues; they find the words "No More" message written on the mirror with Cross' medication dog tags hanging beside it.
Back in New York, Blackbriar supervisor Noah Vosen lies to the Senate, stating that Blackbriar was created solely to track down Bourne and that Deputy Director Pamela Landy committed treason by aiding Bourne and releasing top secret Treadstone files to the press. Meanwhile, Cross recovers from his bullet wounds on the boat out of Manila, where he and Shearing use a chart to determine where they should go next.
Cast
Jeremy Renner as PFC Kenneth James Kitsom / Aaron Cross, agent Number Five of Operation Outcome. After being recruited into the program, he was enhanced both mentally and physically and must take chems daily to stay enhanced. He begins to question the program after accidentally killing civilians during a mission.
Rachel Weisz as Dr. Marta Shearing, a virologist who specializes in designing and maintaining the enhancements done to Outcome agents.
Edward Norton as Colonel Eric Byer, Director of the National Research Assay Group, a fictional government agency similar to DARPA. He oversees the development and operation of all the supersoldier programs and had a working history with Cross in Somalia.
Stacy Keach as Retired Navy Admiral Mark Turso in charge of Operation Outcome.
Dennis Boutsikaris as Terrence Ward, CEO of pharmaceutical company Sterisyn Morlanta. His company develops and tests the chems and viruses used to enhance supersoldiers.
Oscar Isaac as Number Three, an Outcome agent assigned to operate a remote CIA base in Alaska as punishment for falling in love during a mission.
Joan Allen as former CIA Deputy Director Pamela Landy. After exposing Operations Treadstone and Blackbriar to the media she is burned by the CIA. Her actions lead to the shutdown of Operation Outcome.
Albert Finney as Dr. Albert Hirsch, one of the men who designed the supersoldier programs for the government.
David Strathairn as Noah Vosen, the Director of Operation Blackbriar.
Universal Pictures originally intended The Bourne Ultimatum to be the final film in the series, but development of another film was under way by October 2008.[3]George Nolfi, who co-wrote The Bourne Ultimatum, was to write the script of a fourth film, not to be based on any of the novels by Robert Ludlum.[3] Joshua Zetumer had been hired to write a parallel script—a draft which could be combined with another (Nolfi's, in this instance)—by August 2009 since Nolfi would be directing The Adjustment Bureau that September.[4]Matt Damon stated in November 2009 that no script had been approved and that he hoped that a film would begin shooting in mid-2011.[5] The next month, he said that he would not do another Bourne film without Paul Greengrass, who announced in late November that he had decided not to return as director.[6] In January 2010, Damon said that there would "probably be a prequel of some kind with another actor and another director before we do another one just because I think we're probably another five years away from doing it."[7]
However, it was reported in June 2010 that Tony Gilroy, who co-wrote each of the three previous Bourne films, would be writing a script with his brother, screenwriter Dan Gilroy, for a fourth Bourne film to be released sometime in 2012.[8] That October, Universal set the release date for The Bourne Legacy for August 10, 2012,[9] Tony Gilroy was confirmed as the director of the film, and it was also announced that Jason Bourne will not be appearing in The Bourne Legacy.[10]
Gilroy said he did not get involved with the project "until the rules were that Matt [Damon] was gone, Matt and Paul [Greengrass] were gone, there was no Jason Bourne. That was the given when I had the first conversation about this. So it was very important to me, extremely important to me, that everything that had happened before be well preserved and be enhanced if possible by what we're doing now."[11] He also said, "you could never replace Matt [Damon] as Jason Bourne. This isn't James Bond. You can't do a prequel. You can't do any of those kinds of things, because there was never any cynicism attached to the franchise, and that was the one thing they had to hang on to."[12]
Gilroy "never had any intention of ever coming back to this realm at all—much less write it, much less direct it. Then I started a really casual conversation about what we could do in a post-Jason Bourne setting. I was only supposed to come in for two weeks, but the character we came up with, Aaron Cross, was so compelling."[13] After watching The Bourne Ultimatum again, Gilroy called his brother, screenwriter Dan Gilroy, and said, "'The only thing you could do is sort of pull back the curtain and say there's a much bigger conspiracy.' So we had to deal with what happened in Ultimatum as the starting point of this film. Ultimatum plays in the shadows of Legacy for the first 15 minutes—they overlap."[13]
In speaking about the film's storyline, Gilroy drew a distinction between the fictional programs in the Bourne film series:
On a practical level, the Treadstone program was about assassination. They're basically assassins. They live in the world—you can see Clive Owen [in The Bourne Identity] as a piano teacher, they have covers—but they're essentially assassins. There was nothing that would be described as espionage, [they're] basically a kill squad. The Outcome program that Aaron [played by Jeremy Renner] is part of, [Oscar Isaac's character] is one of them too... The conceit is that [Edward Norton's character] is the mastermind of this entire franchise. We're stepping back a little bit in time here, he's been a developer, he's been at the nexus of the corporate military and intelligence communities. There's a very large corporate element, pharmaceutical corporate element...[14]
Filming
Although a large part of the film was set in and around Washington, DC, the real DC appears only in aerial establishing shots. Most of the film was shot over 12 weeks at the Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, New York, including all interior DC scenes.[15] The old house in Hudson, New York, used as Shearing's house was unable to accommodate the weight of equipment and crew, so it was used only for exterior shots, and all interior scenes were filmed on a Kaufman Astoria soundstage.[15] The scenes set in the "SteriPacific" factory in Manila were actually filmed in the New York Times printing plant in Queens.[16]
El Nido, Palawan in the Philippines served as a filming location, and in the film, was used as escape route from Manila.
Gilroy said, "there are three deleted scenes—we just mixed them and color corrected them [...] but what I like about it is all three scenes happen in the movie. One of them's referred to and they're completely legitimate parts of our story, they absolutely happen in our film, we just didn't have time to show them to you so there's nothing off to the side. I think they'll be on the straight-up DVD."[11]
The soundtrack to The Bourne Legacy as composed by James Newton Howard, unlike the previous films, which were composed by John Powell, was released digitally on August 7, 2012, by Back Lot Music and physically on August 21, 2012 by Varèse Sarabande Records.[20][21] A new version of Moby's "Extreme Ways", entitled "Extreme Ways (Bourne's Legacy)", was recorded for the film's end credits.[22]
Release
The Bourne Legacy premiered in New York City on July 30, 2012. It had its Asian premiere at Resorts World Manila in Pasay, Metro Manila, on August 5, 2012, before its release in North America on August 10.[23]
Home media
The Bourne Legacy was released on DVD and Blu-ray on December 11, 2012, in the United States and Canada.[24]
Reception
Box office
In its opening weekend, The Bourne Legacy grossed about $38.7 million in the United States and Canada and debuted at #1 of the box office charts, surpassing Universal's expectation of $35 million. It grossed $46.6 million worldwide in its first weekend.[2] The film sold roughly 400,000 more tickets on its opening weekend than the first film in the series, The Bourne Identity. Studio research reported that audiences were evenly mixed among the sexes.[25] The film grossed $113.2 million in North America and $162.9 million in foreign countries, bringing the film's worldwide total to $276.1 million.[2]
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 55% based on 235 reviews, with an average rating of 5.90/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "It isn't quite as compelling as the earlier trilogy, but The Bourne Legacy proves the franchise has stories left to tell—and benefits from Jeremy Renner's magnetic work in the starring role."[26] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 61 out of 100 based on 42 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[27] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[28]
Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film an A−, commenting that "Gilroy, who as a screenwriter has shaped the movie saga from the beginning, trades the wired rhythms established in the past two episodes by Paul Greengrass for something more realistic and closer to the ground. The change is refreshing. Jason Bourne's legacy is in good hands."[29]Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2½ stars out of 4, writing: "The Bourne Legacy is always gripping in the moment. The problem is in getting the moments to add up. I freely confess that for at least the first 30 minutes I had no clear idea of why anything was happening. The dialogue is concise, the cinematography is arresting and the plot is a murky muddle."[30]
Peter Debruge of Variety wrote that "the combination of Robert Elswit's elegant widescreen lensing and the measured editing by Tony Gilroy's brother John may be easier to absorb than Greengrass' hyperkinetic docu-based style, but the pic's convoluted script ensures that auds will emerge no less overwhelmed."[31] Michael Atkinson of The Village Voice also wrote a scathing review of the film, saying: "The Bourne films have more than just overstayed their welcome and outlasted the Ludlum books—they've been Van Halenized, with an abrupt change of frontman and a resulting dip in personality."[32]
Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times gave the film a positive review, called the film "an exemplary espionage thriller that has a strong sense of what it wants to accomplish and how best to get there." He especially commended Gilroy's work on the film: "Gilroy knows the underpinnings of this world inside out and appreciates how essential it is to maintain and extend the house style of cool and credible intelligence that marked the previous films."[33]Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter commented on his review that "the series' legacy is lessened by this capable but uninspired fourth episode."[34]
From 2012 onward, various additional Bourne film plans have been made and changed, with some intended to be Legacy sequels starring Renner, and others sequels to the original trilogy and starring Damon. The latter eventually saw release as Jason Bourne in 2016. As of 2017, a second Renner film was considered unlikely, though such a work had been in pre-production stages since 2013. The shifting course of these projects has been somewhat complex.
In September 2012, Universal Pictures had stated at a media conference in Los Angeles that they were likely to release more Bourne films, despite Legacy being given mixed reviews by critics.[35] In a December 2012 interview, Matt Damon revealed that he and Paul Greengrass were interested in returning for the next film as Jason Bourne and the director, respectively.[36]
Damon is reported saying that although he had not seen Legacy, he intends to do so because not only is he curious to see it, but also because he has enjoyed Jeremy Renner in everything he has seen him in. However, in June 2014, executive producer Frank Marshall said that Matt Damon would not be returning to the big screen for the next Bourne film, contrary to earlier statements made by Damon and rumors surrounding his return to the franchise.[37] On February 21, 2013, it was confirmed that a Bourne 5 was being planned.[38][39]
On December 2, 2013, it was announced that Renner would return as Cross, Lin would both direct and produce from his production company Perfect Storm Entertainment, and the studio announced an August 14, 2015 release date.[42] On May 9, 2014, Andrew Baldwin was brought in to re-write the film.[43]
On June 18, 2014, the studio pushed back the film from August 14, 2015, to July 15, 2016.[44] In November 2014, the Bourne Legacy sequel was put on hold in favor of Jason Bourne, for which Damon confirmed that he and Greengrass would return.[45]
On January 6, 2015, the studio pushed back the release date to July 29, 2016.[46] The first trailer for the film was aired on February 7, 2016, during Super Bowl 50, which also revealed its title as Jason Bourne.[47] The film premiered
July 11, 2016, in the UK and July 29, 2016, in the United States, to mixed reviews.
Producer Frank Marshall said Universal Pictures is hoping to make a sixth film in the franchise, a direct sequel to Jason Bourne. He stated that a sequel to The Bourne Legacy featuring Renner's Cross is unlikely, although he did not explicitly rule it out.[48] However, in March 2017, Matt Damon cast doubt upon any sequel, hinting that people "might be done" with the character.[49]
