Fans are craving to see a Jason Bourne and Aaron Cross team-up in the fifth installment of the Bourne franchise. After months of speculation and rumors, an official statement has finally been released and it is official, Matt Damon's era is over.
Asked if a comeback was in place for the former star, executive producer Frank Marshall told The Hollywood Reporter "It's simply not true", bursting the bubble of those who were hoping that Damon didn't want to sit back and let Jeremy Renner have all the super-spy fun.
Now on its fifth chapter, the film franchise was first based on and now inspired by the novel series by the late Robert Ludlum, will instead again focus on the Aaron Cross character played by Renner in The Bourne Legacy.
For now, the final decision that Damon will not be reprising the role of Jason Bourne will be from Universal Pictures' announcement that the release date for the as-yet untitled next chapter in the saga has been bumped from Aug. 14, 2015, to July 15, 2016.
"I talk to Justin all the time and the script is not ready," Marshall also told THR, refuting the speculation that the date was pushed back to accommodate Damon's schedule. "It's a summer movie, and if we don't start preproduction now, we can't make next summer. Therefore, it's a wise decision to move to 2016."
Matt Damon had previously stated that he was "open" to another Bourne movie if Paul Greengrass, who directed the sequels The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, was once again behind the camera.
This is the same British filmmaker who most recently helmed Captain Phillips, told Deadline in December about the possibility of returning to the franchise: "I can't speak for Matt, but I agonized for a long period of time about it. In the end I felt I had given it my all in two films I'm very proud of and didn't want to make another if I didn't believe it could be as good if not better."