Released in 2012, The Bourne Legacy marked out a new path for the spy franchise that Matt Damon built, and it did so in the casting of then on-the-rise leading man Jeremy Renner. And while the movie didn't exactly set the world on fire when it was released, it was a good way to continue the series that Damon and director Paul Greengrass declined to return to after their successful trilogy capped off with The Bourne Ultimatum. For a little while, Justin Lin looked to be moving forward with the continuing adventures of Renner's Aaron Cross. However, if you've been reading the news lately, you know just why the sequel to Renner's Bourne continuation is in big trouble for the time being.
Within Deadline's announcement of Lin's inheritance of the Star Trek 3 gig, they mention just how Justin Lin's schedule opened up to take over the sci-fi franchise after the recent departure of Roberto Orci. So how did Lin manage to land the cherry gig of the continuing mission of the U.S.S. Enterprise? As you may have guessed, Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon's return the the Bourne series led Universal to postpone the in-development Bourne Legacy sequel in favor of a return to the original storyline
Now the biggest detail to note is that Justin Lin's continuation of the Aaron Cross portion of the Bourne series isn't cancelled; it simply looks as though it just pushed back. With Damon's Bourne coming back to cineplexes in the more immediate future, this introduces a possibility that Aaron Cross' solo portion of the series could be put on hold in favor of a more eventuful follow-up. That project could have Greengrass and Damon reintroduce Bourne into the fray, while at the same time teaming him up Bourne and Cross for some massive beatdown potential. The possibility has been mentioned in the past, and it’d be a perfectly proportional response to the franchise’s woes without having to cancel any sort of solo action for Jeremy Renner.
So what could this say for Justin Lin’s Bourne 5 project? Well, either that script is going to be put on hold until it's time for another sequel to be made, or it’ll be retooled into the aforementioned possible crossover picture. If we're taking bets, we’d put two stacks of high society down on the latter, as it would be the way to give Renner another Bourne movie without worrying about potential disinterest in a strict Bourne Legacy follow-up. If Lin doesn’t go for another round of Trek after Star Trek 3, he can always come back and pick up where and if Greengrass leaves the franchise, perhaps for the team-up movie.
Star Trek 3 is currently on track for a 50th anniversary-friendly release date on July 8, 2016, and Bourne 5 is currently being prepped for July 15, 2016. Depending on how far along the Damon/Greengrass picture is, there could be a shift in that date.
