Matt Damon unlikely to return as Jason Bourne

Even before we had a chance to see Jeremy Renner in The Bourne Legacy, thoughts had already turned towards the next film, with producer Frank Marshall expressing an early desire to have Matt Damon return in some way. Damon had left the door open just a crack, stating that if director Paul Greengrass was interested, then so was he. But Tony Gilroy's film turned out to be a modest hit that went in a totally different direction than the previous flicks, and while a crossover with Damon and Renner would be a surefire blockbuster, Damon has seemingly shut the door on that idea completely.

Speaking with Movieline, Damon admits to not having seen The Bourne Legacy, but has heard enough to think Jason Bourne no longer fits in....

Damon:  “From what I understand, [The Bourne Legacy] kind of relives [The Bourne Ultimatum] from a different perspective. What that means, because they use our actors and characters, is that whatever they said [in Legacy] is true and so we’d have to acknowledge it in any Bourne movie that we’d do.  And that makes it really tough. I don’t think we can do the Dallas it-was-all-a-dream scenario. I don’t think the audience would go for that after they paid money to see a movie.”

That's a roundabout way of saying Gilroy's film really mucked things up. Disappointing news, but Marshall told us back in July that any sequels would follow Renner's Aaron Cross characters, so this is hardly unexpected.