Jeremy Renner has been on a bit of a spy kick lately. In the past, with “28 Weeks Later” and “The Hurt Locker”, he’s shown capability with military roles, but since his cameo as Hawkeye in “Thor”, he’s been doing a run of spies. Yes, I count Hawkeye as a spy, because that’s what the movie version is. “Thor”, “The Bourne Legacy”, “The Avengers”, and “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” have all been blockbuster spy movies, and we know for certain that one of them’s getting a sequel. No, I’m not talking about “Avengers: Age of Ultron”, but actually a sequel to “The Bourne Legacy”.
The fourth installment of the long-running Bourne series took it’s title from the first book following the death of iconic thriller novelist Robert Ludlum, but like the first three that’s essentially where the similarities end. Aaron Cross was never in the books, the CIA played an extremely small role in the books, and they deal with Bourne undercover as a professor. That said, there’s really no telling how it could pan out, besides taking the old Hammer approach- take a title, send it down to the writer’s, and have them make a story out of it. Today, movieroomreviews.com posted that Universal has greenlight a fifth installment in the Bourne series, acting as a sequel to Legacy, starring the team-up of Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz, but no Damon. Here’s why: In the past, Matt Damon has said that he would love to come back to the series so that he could reprise his role as Jason Bourne, but last October he stated that the direction taken by Legacy changed it so much that he wouldn’t reprise the role unless director Paul Greengrass was in the chair. Essentially, he’s putting the series in Renner’s hands.
As a longtime fan of the series, I’m excited to see how this pans out, but as a film reporter I’m skeptical. End of the day, it’s going to be interesting. Now, I also said there’d be more Hunt, and I’m not kidding. Tom Cruise just posted this to his facebook and twitter feed.
Alongside it was the caption “MISSION ACCEPTED! It’s OFFICIAL! @ChrisMcquarrie is the director of #MissionImpossible5! #TeamTC” Now, this comes as a bit of a shock to me. Normally, there’s a two to four year gap between MI movies, but when you consider how busy Cruise has been lately, what with his recent divorce, followed by losing custody of his daughter, there’s not a whole lot else for him besides work. Will this have Pegg and Renner again? What about Rhys-Meyers and Rhames, will we see more of them? Only time will tell, but I’m just thrilled that we get announcements of America’s two biggest spy series’ in one day, especially when one of them involves the no-name director behind “Jack Reacher”. Apparently Tom trusts him, and he’s willing to do it, so let’s see how the situation develops.
Stay classy.
