Bourne trilogy producer Frank Marshall has been really forthcoming about his hopes for the upcoming fourth film, but as it turns out, his hopes may have been dead wrong. We reported back in December that Marshall wanted to use elements of the Robert Ludlum novel The Parsifal Mosaic for the fourth Bourne film, even though Jason Bourne wasn't in the original book. But now THR is reporting that Universal wants Parsifal to stand on its own, and will adapt it as yet another Bourne-free Ludlum movie.
You may remember that the studio already has Brazilian helmer Jose Padilha working on The Sigma Protocol, and Parsifal would make the third Ludlum franchise (along with Bourne) at the studio. Can there be too much of a good thing here? Parsifal, about U.S. and Soviet spies crossing and double-crossing each other, sounds like it's got all the good Ludlum elements we want to see in movies. But given how much flak movies can get when they try too hard to imitate Bourne, it's hard to know how any of these could succeed with Jason Bourne lurking right around the corner.
Universal has the rights to everything Ludlum, so they can make as many movies based on his books as they like. But there might come a point where our appetites change, and countless globetrotting spies will just feel like clutter.
