Matt Damon Confirms He Will Return To ‘Bourne’ Series In 2016

Matt Damon will reprise his role as Jason Bourne in a new film for 2016. The actor confirmed the casting news to E! Online on Friday night. Well, actually, it was pal Ben Affleck who first “confirmed” it.

“Well, [Damon’s] going to be doing a ‘Bourne’ movie next fall when I’ve just completely lost any semblance of physical fitness,” Affleck teased.

Naturally, this led the entertainment news site to ask the follow-up question of Matt Damon himself since the pair were together promoting their Project Greenlight series.

The answer was one fans of the Jason Bourne franchise will love.

“Yes, next year,” Damon responded. “It’ll be in 2016 when the movie will actually come out. [Director] Paul Greengrass is going to do another one and that’s all I ever said. I just needed him to say yes.”

The series has been on a bit of a hiatus since 2012’s The Bourne Legacy, which found Jeremy Renner playing a role similar to Damon’s.

Tony Gilroy took over the directing chores from Greengrass for that one. Damon’s preferred director said as recently as 2013 that he had no interest in doing another film.

“In the end I felt I had given it my all in two films I’m very proud of and didn’t want to make another if I didn’t believe it could be as good if not better,” he said in an interview with Deadline. “I couldn’t come up with an idea, and the business reality of franchises is that when a studio has a ‘Bourne,’ they’re obliged to make one every couple of years. I discovered in my heart I didn’t have another one in me. The best thing was to move on, have someone else come in and make their mark on it.”

No word yet on whether Greengrass’ change of heart has anything to do with getting to bring Jeremy Renner and Matt Damon together for an action film to end all action films.

Renner is certainly keen on the idea.

“The last I heard was that Paul [Greengrass] and Matt had sort of cracked an idea, a reason to sort of continue the Bourne series. We’re still working on the Aaron Cross sort of section of that, and the worlds definitely, hopefully collide and they’re still a part of each other. I think that it makes it really exciting.”

Do you like the idea of Matt Damon returning to the Jason Bourne franchise for a team-up with Renner?