Four years have passed since Justin Lin (Fast & Furious) first came into contention to direct Jeremy Renner in the Bourne Legacy sequel, and in that time, development on the proposed follow-up has barely moved an inch.
Universal’s spinoff launched into theaters in 2012 as a means of expanding the Bourne franchise beyond Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon’s acclaimed trilogy – incidentally, that creative duo returned for back-to-basics sequel Jason Bourne just last year – though lukewarm reviews and a mediocre box office return meant that the studio quickly cooled talks of a direct continuation.
It’s remained on the backburner ever since, and while appearing at the Television Critics Association summer press tour to promote S.W.A.T, Justin Lin told IGN that despite all of the potential lurking beneath the hood, that Bourne Legacy sequel has essentially been placed on ice over at Universal. Technically, it’s still in development, but when you take Jeremy Renner’s active role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe into consideration – word is that he’ll crop up in Ant-Man and the Wasp, which just entered production in Atlanta – chances are we won’t be seeing Aaron Cross for quite some time.
Per IGN:
I talk to Jeremy all the time and, technically, it’s still in-development but look… Jeremy, I’m one of his biggest fans and I think I signed on because we’d been looking for stuff to work together and we still look for stuff to work together. It was just an opportunity at that time. It was actually getting to be really exciting, but I also realized that’s a whole other franchise universe, and so to me, my connection to it is through Jeremy, and we’re finding some really great things to hopefully work together on.
The Aaron Cross saga was initially designed to run parallel to the core Jason Bourne franchise, one that explored life beyond Operation Treadstone and its nefarious successor, Operation Blackbriar. Alas, a competent, yet fairly uninspired fourth episode put paid to those plans – for now, at least – and given Greengrass and Damon have now put some distance between themselves and Jason Bourne, fans of the beloved action series may be waiting a long, long time for another instalment, regardless of whether it’s headed up by Bourne or Cross.
Tell us, what do you make of Justin Lin’s status report on that fabled Bourne Legacy sequel? You can chime in with your thoughts in the usual spot.
