Tony Gilroy will direct THE BOURNE LEGACY
- Thread starter JacksonArcher
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$371m on a $200m budget? Money-wise, it did "okay" at the least. Quality-wise... well, it didn't have Tony Gilroy, let's put it that way.
That's 371 million dollars of combined domestic and international gross--60 million dollars less than the third film, and off of a colossal production budget of 200 million dollars (which doesn't factor in the cost of prints and advertising).
If the film had been a big financial success, the proposed sequel trilogy McG spoke about so often before the film's release would be in production, and the rights to the franchise wouldn't have been sold at auction.
T4 probably broke even, but it didn't perform to expectations. Not a model I'd want to emulate if I were Tony Gilroy (then again, as you indicate, Gilroy is a more talented director than McG, and a more talented writer than anyone who made a worthwhile contribution to the T4 script).
If the film had been a big financial success, the proposed sequel trilogy McG spoke about so often before the film's release would be in production, and the rights to the franchise wouldn't have been sold at auction.
T4 probably broke even, but it didn't perform to expectations. Not a model I'd want to emulate if I were Tony Gilroy (then again, as you indicate, Gilroy is a more talented director than McG, and a more talented writer than anyone who made a worthwhile contribution to the T4 script).
If T4 can do okay without Arnold... look, it may flop, but it may not, is all I'm saying. Must we pre-judge everything?
There's your answer. CGI Matt Damon and have his skin burned off at the earliest possible opportunity to reveal the robot underneath. I always wondered how Bourne fell down five floors of the building in 'Identity' and then walked it off.
Maybe, but it's not a given. T3 was a big financial success, but it still took four years to get T4 into gear.
Nor does it factor in the profits from video games and dvd/blu.
Damon was respected and liked, but not an A-list star before Bourne, and Universal's probably hoping to launch another star. That's certainly a more promising strategy than starting with a second-rate director and hiring the goddamn Batman to play a totally unnecessary part in a massively non-promising post-apocalyptic setting. If I were a suit, and the script up to par, I'd greenlight this in a second.
Sure, that happens when your star/producer becomes a politician and has to enter temporary retirement from acting. T5 isn't facing any similar hurdle, besides being a sequel to a film that was critically panned and financially disappointing.
... Except that Bale's also expected to do at least one more Batman, and to my knowledge hasn't expressed any interest in doing another Terminator. And that nobody really liked the post-apocalyptic setting, which they're still stuck in. (A Bourne spinoff, on the other hand, can go just about anywhere they like.)
And, eh? The Terminator was destroyed at the end of T3. Since any Stahl/Danes sequel would likely have been set earlier than T4, it would have made even more sense not to feature Arnold.
Bottom line is, T5 isn't being held up because of T4's box office, at least not without several other equally important factors. Ergo, I think audiences will be savvy and open-minded enough to give Legacy a fair shake.
And, eh? The Terminator was destroyed at the end of T3. Since any Stahl/Danes sequel would likely have been set earlier than T4, it would have made even more sense not to feature Arnold.
Bottom line is, T5 isn't being held up because of T4's box office, at least not without several other equally important factors. Ergo, I think audiences will be savvy and open-minded enough to give Legacy a fair shake.
I have to disagree. Box office is the primary reason a sequel to T4 is not actively in production. Anything else you list is a secondary detail--many of which, certainly, could be part of the reason's for the film's less than expected box office returns. Nevertheless, if the film had higher grosses, no executive would be holding up the movie because they didn't like the post-apocalyptic setting.
All of which is growing less and less related to THE BOURNE LEGACY, so I'll let it rest.
All of which is growing less and less related to THE BOURNE LEGACY, so I'll let it rest.
Salvation is overly bashed and it, as noted, didn't kill the franchise. It did underperform domestically, that is agreeable to.$371m on a $200m budget? Money-wise, it did "okay" at the least. Quality-wise... well, it didn't have Tony Gilroy, let's put it that way.
Since it seems a 5-10 year wait occurs between films its way to early to tell where the next film will go. Pick up from Salvation or other.
Not true. Some sure. Nobody=Hyperbole
Yes!
This is a fair point, especially given that Bourne was previously played by Richard Chamberlain.
However, I think the difference is that James Bond was already a well known literary character by the time he was played onscreen by Connery (who wasn't actually the first actor to play him anyway). Bourne was little remembered by the time TBI went into production. At any rate, none of the recent Bourne movies had much to do with the novels. The success of these movies is down in large part to Matt Damon (though the excellent scripts and directors have a role too obviously). The Bond movies were more akin to the Harry Potter ones - hugely successful adaptations of hugely successful, still recent novels (albeit much less faithful to the books than the HP films).
What's different also is by the time Connery first quit the 007 role is that there were still a number of Ian Fleming novels as yet unfilmed. It would have been odd not to proceed to make movies of them, simply because of the unavailability of an actor. Whereas all of the Ludlum novels have been filmed and the 'Legacy' novels are hardly essential reading.
More to the point, the Bourne story has been told and is complete. Webb/ Bourne avenged himself and learned his identity at the end of Ultimatum - the title of which ought to have been a clue to the studio! Who cares about a bunch of other people and how they're affected by his actions?
The other thing to remember is that despite now being regarded as one of the best Bond movies, OHMSS was not a big success, mainly because Sean Connery didn't play the main role. I don't think Jack Ryan is comparable to Bond or Bourne, because despite the huge success of the books, he has never been a huge movie character. Nor have Alec Baldwin or Harrison Ford ever become as associated with him as Damon did with Bourne or Connery with Bond.
This could well be a good movie but I just don't see why they need the comfort blanket of Bourne in the title. Other than to hope to lure in casual viewers, who will spend the whole movie wondering where Damon is. It reminds me of those Pink Panther movies they made in the 1980s after Peter Sellers' death.
The AV Club has two inventories on famously recast roles, and almost all of them involve sitcoms or sci-fi/fantasy movies (they don't count Bond because of the loose narrative continuity of the pre-Craig films), with the exception of the Griswold kids and Clarice Starling.
A Bourne recasting could therefore quite arguably be unusual to a risky degree.
A Bourne recasting could therefore quite arguably be unusual to a risky degree.
Bride of Bourne?
Jurassic Bourne: Treadstone Unearthed
Actually, I'm reminded of the classic 1970s British tv series The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (remade in the USA as Reggie and more recently remade with Martin Clunes in the lead). The original star was Leonard Rossiter, who sadly died in the early 1980s.
The show was sort of revived as The Legacy of Reginald Perrin in the late 1990s. Obviously neither Reggie nor Rossiter were back but most of the original supporting cast were. The idea was that Reggie had died and left a bizarre will with more tasks for them to perform. Despite the fact that the original show had one of the best supporting cast of characters, they just didn't work without Perrin/ Rossiter holding it all together. I think Damon/ Bourne is equally essential to this Legacy.
The show was sort of revived as The Legacy of Reginald Perrin in the late 1990s. Obviously neither Reggie nor Rossiter were back but most of the original supporting cast were. The idea was that Reggie had died and left a bizarre will with more tasks for them to perform. Despite the fact that the original show had one of the best supporting cast of characters, they just didn't work without Perrin/ Rossiter holding it all together. I think Damon/ Bourne is equally essential to this Legacy.
A Bourne movie with no Jason Bourne/Matt Damon...sounds like a tough sell. Weird. Also CBS is developing a pilot about Treadstone called Treadstone 71 (no Jason Bourne it it either).
Eh, what's the point? Matt Damon is why I kept coming back.
That being said, I'll probably see it just say I told you so.
That being said, I'll probably see it just say I told you so.
Moolah. Dough. Sweet green.
You just answered your own question.
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