Matt Damon returns in the third installment of the Bourne franchise, The Bourne Ultimatum, as trained assassin Jason Bourne, who has nothing left to lose and this time remembering everything.
Acclaimed director Paul Greengrass (United 93, The Bourne Supremacy) joins the remarkable returning cast members--Damon, Julia Stiles and Joan Allen and new additions David Strathairn, Scott Glenn, Paddy Considine, Edgar Ramirez and Albert Finney.
Universal Pictures will release The Bourne Ultimatum on August 3rd.
Over the past five years, audiences have eagerly followed Bourne's perilous journey. When The Bourne Identity was released in 2002, moviegoers were enthralled by the film's independent vision that put a distinct postmillennial spin on the action-spy genre. "What surprised people the most was how fresh the movie was," comments producer Frank Marshall. "It wasn't the action movie they expected. I think they expected a film that wasn't as brave as the choices that were made-in the telling of the story, the way it was shot and how good Matt Damon was."
In 2002's The Bourne Identity, Jason Bourne tried to discover who he was and in 2004's The Bourne Supremacy, he sought revenge for what was done to him. Now, Bourne has reached the end of the line. This time, Bourne will not stop at his former masters' empty promises or even with the killing of those who relentlessly pursue him. He will use each nuance of his training and every finely honed instinct they taught him to come after his creators and finish it all. All he wanted was to disappear. Instead, Bourne is now hunted by the people who made him what he is. Having lost his memory and the one person he loved, he is undeterred by the barrage of bullets and a new generation of highly-trained killers. Bourne has only one objective: to go back to the beginning and find out who he was.
Now, in the new chapter of this espionage series, Bourne will hunt down his past in order to find a future. He must travel from Moscow, Paris, Madrid and London to Tangier and New York City as he continues his quest to find the real Jason Bourne while trying to outmaneuver the scores of cops, federal officers and Interpol agents with him in their crosshairs.
To direct the second in the series, The Bourne Supremacy, the producers turned to Paul Greengrass, a British filmmaker who had garnered critical and audience raves for his documentary and feature films-such as the internationally acclaimed Bloody Sunday and Omagh. Though he was transitioning into big-budget filmmaking, Greengrass would retain his signature handheld cameras and style of lightning-quick edits while continuing the series' storyline of one man against a clandestine government program. The Bourne Supremacy won a litany of raves from critics, with Peter Travers of Rolling Stone effusing, "If you've forgotten the kick you get from watching a globe-trotting, butt-kicking, whiplash-paced action movie done with humor, style and smarts, take a ride with The Bourne Supremacy."
Greengrass' career exploded with the thriller and his follow-up work as writer/director of 2006's United 93. Greengrass' efforts and the film would both be put on countless top-10 lists, and earn the director his first Academy Award® nomination for Best Director.
Now, Greengrass brings the rogue hero back to find answers about who and what Bourne is and who made him that way in The Bourne Ultimatum. This need for closure is what made Greengrass want to return to the series. "Bourne is a real man in a real world in pursuit of a mythic quest," he reflects. "What's wonderful is that it's an oppositional story. Is he a killer, or was he made to be a killer? There is an underlying feeling that Bourne is one of us, and he's running away from 'them.' He's trying to get the answers, and he doesn't trust them. They're all bad, and the system's corrupted. To convey that with a sense of excitement in a very contemporary landscape is great fun."
Damon was pleased with the director's desire to helm the third in the series. "Paul is one of the great directors working today," says Damon. "He's a real storyteller whose style is perfect for these movies, because it's not theatrical. He's got a way of shooting that has a very honest feel to it."
Damon again brings to the third production the quiet intensity and quest for truth he first infused into Bourne several years ago. "Matt's unfailingly accurate," returns Greengrass. "There's something about him that makes audiences know he is a good guy. He's a wonderful player of parts where the character is actually very dark. There's a yearning in that character to be good that speaks to people, particularly young people. Matt and I have the same instincts for Bourne, the film and the franchise."
Producer Marshall states that Damon offers the same qualities of the protagonist from Robert Ludlum's classic spy novels. "Matt embodies exactly what Mr. Ludlum would have wanted in the character. For example, he doesn't look like an assassin, even though he's a trained one; he is contemporary and able to slip invisibly into the world. That's the character Ludlum painted."
In earlier chapters, the assassin learned a limited amount about who he was, predominantly through an unusual set of instinctual skills from how to silently kill a target in public to outsmarting anyone who crosses his path. But finding and losing his only love robbed him of the desire to use these tools. "Marie represented Bourne's humanity," says Damon. "He's got a very dark past, and he's done horrible things and he knows it. Marie helped him to understand some of what he did and what it means to be human. With her gone, he doesn't have anything to lose."
Bourne thought his past life was finished when a bullet killed rogue CIA agent Ward Abbott (Brian Cox) at the end of Supremacy. "Treadstone represents this group he never wants to have any contact with again," Damon says. "He gave them an ultimatum at the end of Identity: He'll come back with everything he's got if he feels them behind him."
But the need for global surveillance and the neutralization of threats to national interests has escalated in the minds of key CIA players, and in place of the Treadstone project has come Blackbriar. "They learned from their mistakes of agents having mental breakdowns, and they've upgraded training and behavior modification," explains Damon.
Not only would high-tech surveillance and stunning action mark their return in the third of the series, but Greengrass was adamant that this episode would push the envelope in travel. Indeed, no Bourne film would be complete without a jarring race across the globe that takes moviegoers with Bourne to new locales-from London to Madrid and Tangier, from Paris to Moscow and New York City. "I wanted a contemporary landscape, and I liked the idea of uniting London, Madrid and New York," offers Greengrass. "There are bits in Moscow and a big piece in Tangier. All Bourne films are not only quests, they're journeys."
Damon is an Academy Award®-winning screenwriter, in addition to being honored for his work as an actor. He most recently starred in Martin Scorsese's Oscar®-winning Best Picture The Departed, with Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg, and in Robert De Niro's dramatic thriller The Good Shepherd, with De Niro and Angelina Jolie.
However, 1997 would prove to be Damon's breakout year. Together with his friend Ben Affleck, he co-wrote the acclaimed drama Good Will Hunting, in which Damon also starred in the title role as a troubled math genius. The film brought him an Academy Award® and a Golden Globe award (shared with Affleck) for Best Original Screenplay. Damon also garnered Oscar® and Golden Globe nominations for his performance in the film, as well as two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations: one for his individual performance and another for Outstanding Cast Performance. In the same year, Damon starred as an idealistic young attorney in Francis Ford Coppola's The Rainmaker and made a cameo appearance in Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy.In 2000, Damon starred in Robert Redford's The Legend of Bagger Vance and Billy Bob Thornton's All the Pretty Horses. The next year, he joined an all-star cast including George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, in Steven Soderbergh's hit remake of the Rat Pack comedy Ocean's Eleven. Damon followed with his first action role when he starred as Jason Bourne in 2002's mega-hit action thriller The Bourne Identity. In 2004, he starred in the sequels Ocean's Twelve and The Bourne Supremacy. He is currently starring in the hit Ocean's Thirteen, reuniting him with Soderbergh and the all-star cast.
Damon's recent film work also includes Stephen Gaghan's geopolitical thriller Syriana, with George Clooney; the Farrelly brothers' comedy Stuck on You, opposite Greg Kinnear; Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm, with Heath Ledger; and a cameo appearance in George Clooney's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.
The film features a screenplay by Tony Gilroy (The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy) and Scott Z. Burns (The Half Life of Timofey Berezin) and George Nolfi (Ocean's Twelve, The Sentinel), and a screen story by Gilroy. It is based on the classic spy series by Robert Ludlum. The Bourne Ultimatum is produced by Frank Marshall (the Bourne series, Seabiscuit), Patrick Crowley (the Bourne series, Eight Below) and Paul L. Sandberg (The Bourne Supremacy, Picking Up the Pieces). Executive producers are Jeffrey M. Weiner, Henry Morrison and Doug Liman.
Acclaimed director Paul Greengrass (United 93, The Bourne Supremacy) joins the remarkable returning cast members--Damon, Julia Stiles and Joan Allen and new additions David Strathairn, Scott Glenn, Paddy Considine, Edgar Ramirez and Albert Finney.
Universal Pictures will release The Bourne Ultimatum on August 3rd.
Over the past five years, audiences have eagerly followed Bourne's perilous journey. When The Bourne Identity was released in 2002, moviegoers were enthralled by the film's independent vision that put a distinct postmillennial spin on the action-spy genre. "What surprised people the most was how fresh the movie was," comments producer Frank Marshall. "It wasn't the action movie they expected. I think they expected a film that wasn't as brave as the choices that were made-in the telling of the story, the way it was shot and how good Matt Damon was."
In 2002's The Bourne Identity, Jason Bourne tried to discover who he was and in 2004's The Bourne Supremacy, he sought revenge for what was done to him. Now, Bourne has reached the end of the line. This time, Bourne will not stop at his former masters' empty promises or even with the killing of those who relentlessly pursue him. He will use each nuance of his training and every finely honed instinct they taught him to come after his creators and finish it all. All he wanted was to disappear. Instead, Bourne is now hunted by the people who made him what he is. Having lost his memory and the one person he loved, he is undeterred by the barrage of bullets and a new generation of highly-trained killers. Bourne has only one objective: to go back to the beginning and find out who he was.
Now, in the new chapter of this espionage series, Bourne will hunt down his past in order to find a future. He must travel from Moscow, Paris, Madrid and London to Tangier and New York City as he continues his quest to find the real Jason Bourne while trying to outmaneuver the scores of cops, federal officers and Interpol agents with him in their crosshairs.
To direct the second in the series, The Bourne Supremacy, the producers turned to Paul Greengrass, a British filmmaker who had garnered critical and audience raves for his documentary and feature films-such as the internationally acclaimed Bloody Sunday and Omagh. Though he was transitioning into big-budget filmmaking, Greengrass would retain his signature handheld cameras and style of lightning-quick edits while continuing the series' storyline of one man against a clandestine government program. The Bourne Supremacy won a litany of raves from critics, with Peter Travers of Rolling Stone effusing, "If you've forgotten the kick you get from watching a globe-trotting, butt-kicking, whiplash-paced action movie done with humor, style and smarts, take a ride with The Bourne Supremacy."
Greengrass' career exploded with the thriller and his follow-up work as writer/director of 2006's United 93. Greengrass' efforts and the film would both be put on countless top-10 lists, and earn the director his first Academy Award® nomination for Best Director.
Now, Greengrass brings the rogue hero back to find answers about who and what Bourne is and who made him that way in The Bourne Ultimatum. This need for closure is what made Greengrass want to return to the series. "Bourne is a real man in a real world in pursuit of a mythic quest," he reflects. "What's wonderful is that it's an oppositional story. Is he a killer, or was he made to be a killer? There is an underlying feeling that Bourne is one of us, and he's running away from 'them.' He's trying to get the answers, and he doesn't trust them. They're all bad, and the system's corrupted. To convey that with a sense of excitement in a very contemporary landscape is great fun."
Damon was pleased with the director's desire to helm the third in the series. "Paul is one of the great directors working today," says Damon. "He's a real storyteller whose style is perfect for these movies, because it's not theatrical. He's got a way of shooting that has a very honest feel to it."
Damon again brings to the third production the quiet intensity and quest for truth he first infused into Bourne several years ago. "Matt's unfailingly accurate," returns Greengrass. "There's something about him that makes audiences know he is a good guy. He's a wonderful player of parts where the character is actually very dark. There's a yearning in that character to be good that speaks to people, particularly young people. Matt and I have the same instincts for Bourne, the film and the franchise."
Producer Marshall states that Damon offers the same qualities of the protagonist from Robert Ludlum's classic spy novels. "Matt embodies exactly what Mr. Ludlum would have wanted in the character. For example, he doesn't look like an assassin, even though he's a trained one; he is contemporary and able to slip invisibly into the world. That's the character Ludlum painted."
In earlier chapters, the assassin learned a limited amount about who he was, predominantly through an unusual set of instinctual skills from how to silently kill a target in public to outsmarting anyone who crosses his path. But finding and losing his only love robbed him of the desire to use these tools. "Marie represented Bourne's humanity," says Damon. "He's got a very dark past, and he's done horrible things and he knows it. Marie helped him to understand some of what he did and what it means to be human. With her gone, he doesn't have anything to lose."
Bourne thought his past life was finished when a bullet killed rogue CIA agent Ward Abbott (Brian Cox) at the end of Supremacy. "Treadstone represents this group he never wants to have any contact with again," Damon says. "He gave them an ultimatum at the end of Identity: He'll come back with everything he's got if he feels them behind him."
But the need for global surveillance and the neutralization of threats to national interests has escalated in the minds of key CIA players, and in place of the Treadstone project has come Blackbriar. "They learned from their mistakes of agents having mental breakdowns, and they've upgraded training and behavior modification," explains Damon.
Not only would high-tech surveillance and stunning action mark their return in the third of the series, but Greengrass was adamant that this episode would push the envelope in travel. Indeed, no Bourne film would be complete without a jarring race across the globe that takes moviegoers with Bourne to new locales-from London to Madrid and Tangier, from Paris to Moscow and New York City. "I wanted a contemporary landscape, and I liked the idea of uniting London, Madrid and New York," offers Greengrass. "There are bits in Moscow and a big piece in Tangier. All Bourne films are not only quests, they're journeys."
Damon is an Academy Award®-winning screenwriter, in addition to being honored for his work as an actor. He most recently starred in Martin Scorsese's Oscar®-winning Best Picture The Departed, with Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg, and in Robert De Niro's dramatic thriller The Good Shepherd, with De Niro and Angelina Jolie.
However, 1997 would prove to be Damon's breakout year. Together with his friend Ben Affleck, he co-wrote the acclaimed drama Good Will Hunting, in which Damon also starred in the title role as a troubled math genius. The film brought him an Academy Award® and a Golden Globe award (shared with Affleck) for Best Original Screenplay. Damon also garnered Oscar® and Golden Globe nominations for his performance in the film, as well as two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations: one for his individual performance and another for Outstanding Cast Performance. In the same year, Damon starred as an idealistic young attorney in Francis Ford Coppola's The Rainmaker and made a cameo appearance in Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy.In 2000, Damon starred in Robert Redford's The Legend of Bagger Vance and Billy Bob Thornton's All the Pretty Horses. The next year, he joined an all-star cast including George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, in Steven Soderbergh's hit remake of the Rat Pack comedy Ocean's Eleven. Damon followed with his first action role when he starred as Jason Bourne in 2002's mega-hit action thriller The Bourne Identity. In 2004, he starred in the sequels Ocean's Twelve and The Bourne Supremacy. He is currently starring in the hit Ocean's Thirteen, reuniting him with Soderbergh and the all-star cast.
Damon's recent film work also includes Stephen Gaghan's geopolitical thriller Syriana, with George Clooney; the Farrelly brothers' comedy Stuck on You, opposite Greg Kinnear; Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm, with Heath Ledger; and a cameo appearance in George Clooney's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.
The film features a screenplay by Tony Gilroy (The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy) and Scott Z. Burns (The Half Life of Timofey Berezin) and George Nolfi (Ocean's Twelve, The Sentinel), and a screen story by Gilroy. It is based on the classic spy series by Robert Ludlum. The Bourne Ultimatum is produced by Frank Marshall (the Bourne series, Seabiscuit), Patrick Crowley (the Bourne series, Eight Below) and Paul L. Sandberg (The Bourne Supremacy, Picking Up the Pieces). Executive producers are Jeffrey M. Weiner, Henry Morrison and Doug Liman.
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