Links to the threads on The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007).

As I'm pretty sure I said in one of the other threads, I don't see how they can possibly keep this franchise going. The whole premise of the thing is that Jason Bourne has no memory of his earlier life, and by the end of the third film, Bourne simply knows too much (indeed, he kind of knew too much by the end of the second film, which is why the first two thirds of the third film take place before the end of the second film). Indeed, he isn't even really "Jason Bourne" any more. And all the corrupt government officials who went after him in the first three films have already been vanquished (indeed, they had to invent a brand new set of operatives in the third film because there was no one left to chase him at the end of the second one).

- - -

Universal's re-born identity
The biggest risks are in their efforts at landing new franchises, something that, save for the "Bourne" series, has eluded U for quite some time. "Evan Almighty" was but the latest in a series of disappointments that also include the previous regime's "Van Helsing" and "King Kong."
On tap is a fourth "Bourne" movie, but their slate is full of efforts to either launch new franchises or resurrect old ones. The latter group include revivals of "The Mummy," "Hellboy" and "The Incredible Hulk," as well as another "The Fast and the Furious." . . .
More recently, Shmuger and Linde landed Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon for a fourth "Bourne" movie, even though the director and star seemed ready to wrap it up after three pics. . . .
Variety, February 22

Plus, the three titles to date have all been in alphabetical order:

The Bourne Identity
The Bourne Supremacy
The Bourne Ultimatum

There just aren't that many letters in the alphabet after U.

The Bourne Victory
The Bourne Wipeout (that could have a couple of meanings)
The Bourne Yawn (haven't we seen these car crashes before)
The Bourne Zenith

The Bourne Vindication
The Bourne Wanderlust
The Bourne Xcavation
The Bourne Yearnings
The Bourne Zydeco

Bourne Voyage ?

Ha! I actually thought of that one too.


Dang dang dang. I spent longer than I should have trying to think of a good V one to follow up on my first post, and you just come along and knock it out of the park.

However, we can certainly improve at least on existing proposals for W, Y and Z (X is a toughie).

On my blog, someone suggested Bourne Again.

Then you'd be back at "A", and the possibilities would be, well, not endless, but enough.

I think Damon himself had the best suggestion. "The Bourne Redundancy".

The Bourne Vanity
The Bourne Widow
The Bourne Xntricity
The Bourne Years, Early Edition
The Bourne Zenophon (?)

The last two being prequels. Hey, if Lucas can do it... Besides, that means we don't need Damon anymore.

SDG wrote:
: However, we can certainly improve at least on existing proposals for W, Y and Z (X is a toughie).

Do it, people. Just do it. The Bourne Xylophone. You know you want to.

Overstreet:
: On my blog, someone suggested Bourne Again.

That would be THE Bourne Again.

Mind you, "Bourne Again" was such a common headline on reviews and previews of the first two sequels that I felt kind of bad about using the phrase in my blog post on this subject. So I wouldn't push for the use of it in an actual title!

Does Universal have the rights to the two sequels written by Eric Van Lustbader? Or do they only have the rights to the original Robert Ludlum books? If the former, then the titles The Bourne Legacy and The Bourne Betrayal would be open to them.

Unless they can come up with a truly compelling story as to who David Webb was, and why he would become Jason Bourne, which IMHO has yet to be answered beyond patriotic duty, then I can't see bothering with revisiting this series. Ultimatum gave us very little insight into "pre-programmed" David Webb, and Bourne's final "I remember everything..." wasn't much of a payoff.

But you did it so well.

I've got it.

Still Bourne

Would that be a pro-life film, life-affirming, or would it indeed be a pro-death film?

Universal moves ahead with 'Bourne'
Universal is moving ahead with its fourth installment of "The Bourne Identity" series, setting George Nolfi to write the script. . . .
Though the series is based on the Robert Ludlum novels, the new film won't be based on a Ludlum title, but rather an original story. . . .
The studio intended to stop at the third installment, but the film grossed $227 million domestically and $215 million overseas.
Variety, October 16

- - -

Baal_T'shuvah wrote:
: Unless they can come up with a truly compelling story as to who David Webb was, and why he would become Jason Bourne . . .

Ah, but did he ever really "become" Jason Bourne? I know the third film said he did, but isn't the third film full of crap on that point? By which I mean, doesn't the third film contradict the first film on that point? My recollection of the first film -- which I haven't seen in seven years, but Wikipedia seems to confirm my memory of it -- is that David Webb had MULTIPLE aliases. "Jason Bourne" is just the alias he sees on one of his American passports, after he loses his memory. But there were OTHER aliases, too. There was no reason to build an entire sequel around a flashback in which David Webb's boss says to him, "Hey, you are no longer David Webb, you are now THIS alias," while presumably adding under his breath, far from the movie's microphones, "But you have other aliases as well which I will now talk about while the movie isn't looking at me."

Do they even need the rights to those books in order to use the titles? My understanding was that titles in general aren't copyrightable. I don't know if it makes a difference if it's a case like this where they're obviously referencing the same character and story-universe. If it's trademarked, that's a different beast, but unless they're using the actual storylines from Legacy or Betrayal, I'm not sure if they'd be impeded from using the titles or not. (And considering that the first 3 movies don't really follow the storylines of the books they're named after, it would be a departure for them if they did decide to use the books at this point.)

popechild wrote:
: Do they even need the rights to those books in order to use the titles? My understanding was that titles in general aren't copyrightable.

I don't know.

I do know that Spielberg once bought the rights to a few sentences -- and only those sentences -- from one of the sequels to Brian Aldiss's 'Supertoys Last All Summer Long', so that he could incorporate an element from that sequel into his adaptation of the original story. (The resulting movie was A.I. Artificial Intelligence.) But that's a "content" issue, not a "title" issue.

I also know that movies have sometimes had to change their titles to avoid clashing with other movies -- and I believe that there is some entity that regulates these things. But that's a matter between two movies, not between a movie and a book. (And sometimes clashing titles come out anyway; witness how Paul Haggis's Crash came out less than a decade after David Cronenberg's Crash. And both directors are Canadian, too, so it's not like Haggis wouldn't have known about Cronenberg's film -- which, incidentally, was based on a book, whereas Haggis's film was not.)

According to this interview with producer Frank Marshall, Bourne 4 is not going to be based on a Bourne book at all, but on another Robert Ludlum story called The Parsifal Mosaic.

I don't see this as a big deal, as the original trilogy was quite loosely adapted from Ludlum's novels anyway. If plot points from The Parsifal Mosaic give the writers a jumping off point for a strong story of their own, I will be happy.

Jeff wrote:
: According to this interview with producer Frank Marshall, Bourne 4 is not going to be based on a Bourne book at all, but on another Robert Ludlum story called The Parsifal Mosaic.

As I just mentioned at my blog, I think this idea COULD work if, indeed, The Parsifal Mosaic is about a RETIRED spy who goes looking for a former lover who he used to believe was dead.

Jason Bourne no longer exists any more. The hero of these films is now, and will always be, David Webb. The bosses who pursued him are all either dead or have had their covers blown on the news. There is simply no one to chase any more, and no one to chase him. The trilogy is over. (Indeed, the second film itself had already wrapped things up so well that the third film was obliged to take place, for the most part, BETWEEN the events of the second film.)

However, with David Webb no longer on the run, and the Joan Allen character remaining as a person of some integrity within the CIA (I'm assuming she has remained within the CIA; I could be wrong about that), then it is possible that the two of them could work together on some OTHER mission. But I can't imagine for the life of me how the "Jason Bourne" persona could be dragged into this.

The question now, of course, is who this former lover would be. Will the Franka Potente character, who was killed at the beginning of the second film, come back from the dead somehow? Or will the Julia Stiles character, who seemed to be interested in Bourne in the third film, be "presumed dead" for some reason at the beginning of the fourth film, thus leading to a whole new storyline? Or will they invent an entirely new character who was a lover of David Webb's before the trilogy took place? (And if they pursue this last option, then at what point in David's storyline will she have been his lover? Before he chose to become an assassin? After? Would they still have been dating when the amnesia hit him, which led him to adopt the "Jason Bourne" identity out of all the various aliases that he discovered?)