After keeping pretty quiet on the promotional front, Universal Pictures chose February to start selling The Bourne Legacy. Today sees a whole new image of Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross, an exceedingly industrious and dangerous graduate of an assassin-training program very much like Treadstone, the secret operation that created Matt Damon‘s Jason Bourne.
The teaser trailer that debuted two weeks ago did a pretty damn good job of introducing the rather odd notion that a Bourne movie doesn’t necessarily need Jason Bourne by playing up familiar stylistic elements of the franchise and incorporating familiar faces from previous installments. Still, it seems as though a substantial portion of the audience isn’t too keen on an ass-kicking adventure without Damon or Bourne Supremacy and Bourne Ultimatum director Paul Greengrass.
Tony Gilroy, who had a hand in oh-so loosely adapting Robert Ludlum‘s novels for the previous three films, takes over as director here. Gilroy made his directorial debut in 2007 with Michael Clayton and followed that Oscar-nominee up with Duplicity in 2009.
With Renner beating the hell out of people and jumping off stuff in the lead role, Gilroy’s surrounded him by an impressive supporting cast that includes series standbys Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Scott Glenn, and Albert Finney, along with franchise newbies Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Corey Stoll, and Stacy Keach.
The Bourne Legacy does its leaping in theaters on August 3rd.
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