Ed Norton To Play Villain In, Possibly Re-Edit, THE BOURNE LEGACY

Variety reports that Ed Norton will be taking the villain role in The Bourne Legacy, where he’ll be Brian Coxing against Jeremy Renner, who is playing another secret agent ass-kicking machine who just wants to remember his real name.

You’ll recall that Matt Damon is out of the series now, with his character having solved all his identity issues and killed everybody he met. But Universal cannot allow the franchise, which is not only good but profitable, that rarest of Hollywood combinations, to die, and so they’ve given somebody else from Treadstone or whatever amnesia. At least I think that’s the premise.

I’m being glib, but I assume The Bourne Legacy will be pretty good. Tony Gilroy, who wrote on the previous films (how much of his stuff ever made it to screen remains open to debate), is directing. I didn’t like his directorial debut, Michael Clayton, all that much, but it wasn’t badly made, per se.

And so now the new Bourne has Renner, Norton and Rachel Weitz. That’s a pretty good cast.