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Matt Damon might be returning to the big screen in the fourth instalment of a blockbuster franchise, but he’s bummed out.

Because he knows movies like Jason Bourne, Baywatch and Ghostbusters are being rebooted because studios have a lack of faith in independent and original films.

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Matt won an Oscar alongside Ben Affleck for the original screenplay of Good Will Hunting, and went on to appear in such indie darlings as The Talented Mr Ripley, Syriana and The Informant!.

Now, the actor has explained to Metro.co.uk just why these types of films are becoming harder and harder to find:


Just in general the movie, the $15-60million drama, is gone. They just don’t make that movie any more. When we went to do Behind The Candelabra in 2012, we couldn’t get that movie made – and it had Steven Soderberg directing it and me and Michael [Douglas] – and we couldn’t get £23 million to make the movie. And that would have been a lay-up 15 years ago, it would have been five places trying to woo you. That’s gone now, and Steven said to me at the time, like he said, “look, if we were making The Informant! today,” he goes, “we’d be on HBO”.

Matt in 2009’s The Informant! (Picture: Warner Bros)

Because studios don’t want to risk it:

You know, because the DVD market dried up. So that severely cut into the margins that studios would rather bet big on these big titles. And with this whole international audience, the more, you know, the simpler the story the more that it can kind of play, the less language matters so that the more broad appeal that it can play around the world, and that’s why you’re seeing the movies change.

But TV is making sure original storytelling has a home:

It’s a bummer for me because my bread and butter was those movies, those dramas, but there are lots migrating to TV. Television is really experiencing this renaissance and they’ve got these incredible writers who have so much more power on television than they did in the film world and they’re writing incredible stories. So there’s still work there, but the indie movies you’re talking about, yeah, they’re tough to find.

So with that in mind why is Matt back with a fourth Jason Bourne film? He says it’s because fans kept asking to see the super spy again, and that there was a ‘worthy’ story to tell.

Matt’s back as Bourne (Picture: Universal)

‘We talked a lot about what the movie was going to be and I mean everyone felt that pressure,’ Damon explained. ‘We really wanted it to be a worthy chapter in this guys story and wanted it to feel like the other three we’ve made. I think we’ve done it, I hope we’ve done it. It was definitely a lot of pressure.’

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The latest film is set several years after his disappearance at the conclusion of 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum and Jason is still haunted by his past. It sees the return of Julia Stiles as Nicky Parsons who has information about the CIA program that created him as well as a new one about to be unleashed, and the CIA are chasing him again to ensure Bourne doesn’t expose their secrets again.



Fourteens years of playing a character like Jason could no doubt affect an actor’s perception of the world, and the government, but Matt says he hasn’t really taken on board any of Bourne’s skills or paranoia after all this time.

‘Fake movie fighting isn’t actually a good skill to carry around in regular life,’ the actor laughs. ‘It really doesn’t help you in anything, but no, I don’t know if the playing the role made me any more paranoid. I don’t think so.

‘I don’t know that I’d make a particularly good spy. It’s easier for me to play the character then actually carry those skills into my real life!’

Jason Bourne is in cinemas on July 27. Watch the trailer below

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