Jeremy Renner is becoming quite the action star with the potential for taking over the Mission: Impossible franchise, to a role as Hawkeye in The Avengers and now picking up where Matt Damon left off in The Bourne Legacy.
Details are trickling out about the film as Renner recently opened up to Empire, telling the film mag, “My character is called Aaron Cross, but he ends up having a bunch of different names. For fans of the franchise, [The Bourne Legacy] has that same ticking clock, but it’s a new programme and new characters.” Just above you get your first look at Renner as Cross courtesy of USA Today.
In this new film Tony Gilroy returns to direct the franchise he helped kick off serving as screenwriter on the first three films. Here he explores an original story that introduces us to Aaron Cross (Renner) whose life-or-death stakes have been triggered by the events of the first three films.
Renner continued discussing the film adding, “It’s just a new set of agents with a different leash. It’s the same tempo and pace but more expansive and bigger. The differences are pretty vast but you’ll know it’s a Bourne movie.”
Joining Renner and also new to the franchise are Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Stacy Keach and Oscar Isaac, while franchise veterans Albert Finney, Joan Allen, David Strathairn and Scott Glenn reprise their roles from previous films.
As for Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne, he’s not in the film, but as Gilroy said last October, “This is not a reboot or a recast or a prequel. No one’s replacing Matt Damon. There will be a whole new hero, a whole new chapter…this is a stand-alone project… The easiest way to think of it is an expansion or a reveal. Jason Bourne will not be in this film, but he’s very much alive.”
The Bourne Legacy hits theaters on August 3, 2012.
