Ed Norton is currently in negotiations to star opposite Jeremy Renner in David Gilroy’s upcoming The Bourne Legacy. Norton will be playing the villain to Renner’s heroic lead.
Not much is known about the plot of the film outside of the fact that it is a follow up to the Matt Damon-starring Bourne trilogy but will not feature the actor. Instead, the movie will center on another US special agent who was brainwashed into a killing machine by a covert government organization even worse than the one behind the machinations of the previous films.
Director Gilroy is the writer behind the previous installments in the franchise, so he is certainly a good pick to continue things with this new movie. Although this is first crack at helming a Bourne film he has Michael Clayton and Duplicity on his directorial resume and that’s not bad.
What is interesting about the choice of Norton as villain is that he is a much bigger marquee name than Renner. As the first three films centered very much on Damon’s Jason Bourne character, it seems unusual that someone like Norton would take what would be a more supporting role than he usually would. It leads me to believe that perhaps Gilroy is going to be giving his hero’s nemesis more screen time than usual in this outing. Hopefully for Gilroy, Norton won’t be as difficult as some of the stories that came out of the production of 2008’s The Incredible Hulk would lead us to believe.
Via Variety.
