Matt Damon is not someone who burst onto the scene as an action hero. Instead, he honed his dramatic chops in movies like Good Will Hunting, Rounders, and The Talented Mr. Ripley before establishing himself as an action star thanks to a 2002 movie that was arguably the biggest role of his career up to that point. Now, nearly 25 years later, the film and its sequels are back to take over streaming ahead of Damon’s potential return to the franchise after ten years away.
Matt Damon Plays the Anti-James Bond
Hitting theaters on June 14, 2002, The Bourne Identity introduced moviegoers to a new breed of action hero that some described as the anti-James Bond. Ripped from the pages of Robert Ludlum’s fantastic spy novels, Jason Bourne wasn’t a polished, glamorous hero who cared about his drink order. No, he was a deeply flawed, confused, and traumatized man just trying to figure out his place in an increasingly chaotic world.
Kicking off with a bang after being rescued from the Mediterranean Sea with several gunshot wounds and no memory of who he is, The Bourne Identity sees Jason Bourne slowly unravel the reason for his existence. Learning that he has exceptional talents for fighting, surveillance, and languages, he soon realizes that he was once a highly trained CIA assassin, and that he’s being hunted by the very organization he once worked for.
Directed by Doug Liman (Road House), The Bourne Identity grossed $214 million at the box office against a budget of $60 million, but that’s not the real story here. In addition to making Damon a bona fide action star, the movie became one of the most influential action thrillers in history as it proved to Hollywood execs that audiences were more than willing to champion intelligent heroes who relied on their brains more than their massive brawn.
As such, the Bourne franchise continued in the years that followed with The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. Each one earned progressively more than its predecessor at the box office, thus solidifying the three movies as one of the greatest action trilogies of the modern era. It’s no wonder, then, that all three have returned to take a bite out of streaming, where they are once again enjoying tremendous success.
Jason Bourne Returns to Dominate Streaming
Currently, the first three movies in the Bourne franchise are available to stream in the United States on Starz, and it’s there where new life is being breathed into the trio thanks to Amazon. Through the Starz add-on on Amazon Channels, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum are currently the fifth, sixth, and seventh most popular films in the Top 10 (per Flix Patrol), proving that even now, more than two decades after it first hit the silver screen, people still can’t get enough of the franchise.
While Damon did take a break from things that resulted in Jeremy Renner’s turn at the wheel in the vastly underrated The Bourne Legacy in 2012, he would return in 2016’s Jason Bourne. Together, all five movies grossed more than $1 billion at the box office, and now, a sixth entry in the franchise is currently being worked on. According to Damon, who appeared on The Rich Eisen Show earlier in the summer, he and director Edward Berger are just trying to “come up with a new story.”
Sadly, that means we probably won’t be getting another entry in the Bourne franchise anytime soon, but it’s good to know that the series is something that’s still on everyone’s mind. As we await to find out what comes next, be sure to stream the first three movies on Starz.
- Release Date
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June 14, 2002
- Runtime
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119 minutes
- Director
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Doug Liman