Paul Greengrass Off of Bourne 4

Sad news has come our way in the form of Paul Greengrass and his involvement with the fourth Bourne film. For the most part we’ve been told that the next installment was going according to plan with Greengrass, Matt Damon, and several new writers on board. All of a sudden we get the shocking news that the director has decided to quit the film according to The Playlist.

Close sources and friends near the Bourne project are saying that Paul Greengrass walked away over a week ago but they wanted to make sure all their info was accurate before going public. The film has been going  through a long development process, which most fans chalked up as a good thing. No one wanted it to be rushed with an underdeveloped story.

Speaking of the story, two screenwriters were on board for the film, one being George Nolfi, who did The Bourne Ultimatum and Josh Zetumer who was brought on to write a parallel script to Nolfi’s. Universal did all of this while Greengrass was toiling away on the set of his latest film, Green Zone so he was none the wiser. Word on the street is that Damon is religiously loyal to Paul, so there’s no way he would do another Bourne film without him behind the camera.

Here’s a good question in the midst of all this drama, what does Damon’s contract say? Does he have the option to jump ship if he doesn’t have director approval? If not he’s not going anywhere, and if he leaves there’s something called a breach of contract that I’m sure he doesn’t want to mess with. Also, whatever happened to Doug Liman? The Bourne Identity was awesome and it’s what kicked off this series, is he no longer available?

What do you think will happen to the Bourne franchise? Should they try to get Greengrass to return?