One Of Matt Damon's Biggest Box Office Hits Had An 'Embarrassing' First Draft Script

The original "Jason Bourne" films hold up as the best American action movie trilogy made in the last few decades. (No matter how middling spin-off "The Bourne Legacy" and delayed sequel "Jason Bourne" are, we'll always have the first three.) Loosely based on the 1980s novel trilogy by Robert Ludlum, Matt Damon stars as Bourne, a CIA assassin who winds up on the run from his handlers after coming down with amnesia.

In this rock solid trilogy, which of the three is the best? "The Bourne Identity," where the audience and Jason himself slowly piece together the truth of who he is, has the most involved narrative. Unlike the next two sequels, "Identity" is not only a relentless chase. Directed by Doug Liman, "Identity" also lacks the visual language (shaky-cam) that defines the subsequent "Bourne Supremacy" and "Bourne Ultimatum."

For my money, "The Bourne Ultimatum" is the best one. Director Paul Greengrass refines his skills and makes the movie move like an action machine. It also has a similar mystery as "Identity" does: Bourne is out to discover who he really was before the CIA's Treadstone program brainwashed him into an asset.

Someone who might disagree with me about "The Bourne Ultimatum" is Matt Damon himself; he found writer Tony Gilroy's original script quite lacking. In a 2011 interview with GQ, Damon said this about the "Ultimatum" first draft:

"I don't blame Tony for taking a boatload of money and handing in what he handed in. It's just that it was unreadable. This is a career-ender. I mean, I could put this thing up on eBay and it would be game over for that dude. It's terrible. It's really embarrassing. He was having a go, basically, and he took his money and left."

Going into "The Bourne Ultimatum," the series had earned great reviews and box office returns: "Identity" made $214 million on a $60 million budget, and then "Supremacy" upped that to $290 million on a $75 million budget. According to Damon, Gilroy felt he could rest on his laurels after this. 

Long before he created the Star Wars TV series "Andor," Tony Gilroy spent the 1990s as a rising screenwriter — his credits include "The Devil's Advocate" and "Armageddon." Once the new millennium came, he wrote all three "Bourne" screenplays. ("Identity" is co-credited to William Blake Herron, but Gilroy has sole credit on "Supremacy.")

Gilroy parlayed the success of the first two "Bourne" movies into a sweetheart deal for the third film; he would only be contracted to write one draft, with no rewrites and no notes, and he'd get a huge payday for it. This resulted in (apparently) subpar work. This is pure speculation, but Gilroy was also making his directorial debut, "Michael Clayton," at this time, so it's possible that ate up his attention and passion.

Regardless, the "Bourne Ultimatum" team had to scramble to fix the script and meet the August 2007 release date. "It's really the studio's fault for putting themselves in that position," said Damon to GQ. In a 2007 interview with Collider, Damon described how Paul Greengrass, Scott Z. Burns, and George Nolfi refined the script piece by piece:

"We were lucky enough to have George Nolfi on set with us every day. So George kept out ahead of us. He would literally be in his hotel room working on the pages for the next day while we were working on the pages he had given us for this day, and we were making our tweaks in the real location, going, "Okay, well let's change this to that, because that thing's over there." You know, it's not an advisable way to make a movie. Like you couldn't teach that in film school and send people out there. But it works for Paul."

"The Bourne Ultimatum" writing credit is shared by Gilroy, Burns, and Nolfi. Gilroy arbitrated to get sole credit, but the Writers Guild of America (WGA) investigated the situation and denied him. Not that any of this drama or quick turnaround rewrites mattered in the end; "The Bourne Ultimatum" kept pace, turning in $444 million and quadrupling its $110 million budget.

Some salt in the wound: Damon made these comments when Gilroy was directing "The Bourne Legacy" (co-written by Gilroy and his brother Dan). "Legacy" starred Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross, another former CIA assassin who'd been in a similar program that Bourne had. The movie was clearly attempting to make Renner/Cross the new anchor, but much like how Renner was supposed to take over "Mission: Impossible" from Tom Cruise, that didn't pan out.

Damon soon apologized via the original GQ interviewer for airing his dirty laundry with Gilroy publicly. ("If I didn't respect [Gilroy] and appreciate his talent, then I really wouldn't have cared.") Gilroy told Empire magazine in 2012 how the comments shocked him: "I don't understand that at all. I don't know where it came from. I think Matt is one of the greatest actors of his generation." 

Whether they made nice or not, Gilroy did not return for the 2016 sequel "Jason Bourne," which was written by Greengrass and Christopher Rouse (Greengrass' go-to editor) instead. Again, that movie got much less warm reviews than the original three, so maybe Gilroy had the touch these movies need after all.