With loads of Universal’s movies bombing at the box office, there are only two franchises that always seem to pay for them, Fast & Furious and Jason Bourne. Ever since Paul Greengrass stepped away from directing a fourth Bourne flick (and Matt Damon went with him), the studio has been feverishly working an a prequel/reboot, that will take us back to the early days of the secret agent, presumably before he became all amnesia riddled.
Now it’s time to find a new actor to play Bourne. Variety reports that Jake Gyllenhaal, Tobey Maguire, Garrett Hedlund, Taylor Kitsch and Kellan Lutz top the list of choices, but Deadline adds that Joel Edgerton, Josh Hartnett, Paul Dano, Michael Pitt, Oscar Isaac, Michael Fassbender, Luke Evans, Alex Pettyfer, and Benjamin Walker are also in the running, although many may have scheduling conflicts. Some of the actors are apparently drawn from suggestions by Tony Gilroy (who scripted Damon’s Bourne trilogy and will write & direct the new film) while other are from the studio.
However it does sound like it’s early days and that they’re basically just sounding out the type of actor they’d like, as Variety points out the role may not go to any of these actors.
It’s also a fairly wide age range and ‘type’ of actor. Maguire is only six years younger than Matt Damon, while Alex Pettyfer is a full 20 years Matt’s junior. It’s difficult to imagine the role is written so all these actors could play it, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the studio is pushing the younger player – both because they’re cheaper and may appeal to a wider demographic – while the director wants someone a little more experienced.
Gilroy apparently wants to screentest all of the actors, which suggests they haven’t quite decided which direction they want to go with the flick. To be honest, some of the actors on the list could simply have replaced Damon in a continuation of the franchise, while others seem more fitting for a prequel about his early days as a CIA trained killing machine, so it seems screentests are as much to do with fiding the tone of the movie as the right actor. However they’ll have to get a move on, as Universal wants to start shooting this spring for release in 2012.