Jason Bourne series could be snapped up by Netflix

The Jason Bourne cinematic universe is up for grabs, and could end up in the hands of Netflix according to The Hollywood Reporter.

For the last 20-plus years, the Bourne films have sat under the Universal banner. But that’s changing.

The rights are up for sale again, and parties reportedly in contention to snag it include Netflix, Apple and Skydance. Universal retaining the rights isn’t apparently out of the question either.

One worry if the streamers get their hands on this movie franchise: will Bourne even make it into cinemas again? You don’t have to look far to find a story of a director despondent their streamer-funded flick won’t actually be shown on the big screen.

There are a lot of other questions surrounding Bourne, though.

What's the future for Bourne?

It has been the better part of a decade since we had a Bourne film, 2016’s Jason Bourne. It saw Matt Damon return to the role, after Jeremy Renner was the focus of the moderately successful The Bourne Legacy from 2012.

Will Damon return, assuming a film is made? He’s currently 54, and will be a bit older than that by the time any Jason Bourne production eventually gets up to speed.

Perhaps we’ll instead see Bourne take a route trodden by fellow fictional character Jack Reacher.

Reacher made a pretty successful transition from film series (starring Tom Cruise) to TV, with Skydance/Paramount’s Reacher series starring Alan Ritchson.

And the extant Bourne films already deviate pretty dramatically from the books, written by Robert Ludlum.

The original Bourne books made up a trilogy, named just like the movies — The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and the Bourne Ultimatum. Following the success of the films, a whole stack of follow-ups were written by Eric Van Lustbader, and then Brian Freeman. Could it be time to head back to the source, and those original three novels?

A fresh Bourne movie was in the works at Universal back in 2023, with Conclave director Edward Berger reportedly attached. But, well, that clearly didn’t get very far.

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