Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz are expected to return for the next entry in Universal’s popular Bourne series, but just about everything else is changing for the untitled follow-up to 2012’s The Bourne Legacy. Tony Gilroy, who has been with the series since The Bourne Identity, is no longer involved, and it’s highly unlikely that either director Paul Greengrass or star Matt Damon will return in the near future.
Instead, Fast & Furious 6 helmer Justin Lin was brought in last year to direct Bourne 5, and Sherlock Holmes scribe Anthony Peckham took over script-writing duties. However, now we’re hearing that Universal has nominated Andrew Baldwin, a Black List scribe (for his unproduced Western The West is Dead) once attached to pen the now-dead Logan’s Run reboot, to rewrite the script.
That’s not great news, considering the film is currently set for release next summer and is still struggling to lock in a script, but at least Baldwin sounds like a solid choice. He previously penned The Outsider, about an American G.I. (once set to be played by Tom Hardy) who joins the Japanese yakuza. That film was scheduled for 2015 but is still in dwelling in development hell. Baldwin also wrote Red Asphalt, an action film that Wanted helmer Timur Bekmambetov hopes to direct at some point for Lionsgate.
Nothing has been revealed in terms of plot just yet, though The Bourne Legacy‘s middling box office performance and reviews might have encouraged Universal to go in a different direction with the story. Whether that means reduced roles for Renner and Weisz is unclear. At least Baldwin seems like a better choice to write an action-packed spy thriller than the guy behind Sherlock Holmes.
Bourne 5 is scheduled for August 14th, 2015, though chances of it being pushed back seem high.