| The Bourne Ultimatum | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Paul Greengrass |
| Produced by | Frank Marshall Patrick Crowley Paul L. Sandberg |
| Screenplay by | Tony Gilroy Scott Z. Burns George Nolfi |
| Story by | Tony Gilroy |
| Based on | The Bourne Ultimatum by Robert Ludlum |
| Starring | Matt Damon Julia Stiles David Strathairn Scott Glenn Édgar Ramírez Albert Finney Joan Allen Joey Ansah Colin Stinton |
| Music by | John Powell |
| Cinematography | Oliver Wood |
| Editing by | Christopher Rouse |
| Studio | Kennedy/Marshall Ludlum Entertainment |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | August 3, 2007 |
| Running time | 116 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $110 million |
| Box office | $442,824,138[1] |
The Bourne Ultimatum is a 2007 American action thriller spy film directed by Paul Greengrass and very loosely based on the Robert Ludlum novel of the same title.[2] This film is the third in the Bourne film series, being preceded by The Bourne Identity (2002) and The Bourne Supremacy (2004). The fourth movie, The Bourne Legacy, is scheduled for release in July 2012.
Matt Damon reprises his role as Ludlum's signature character, former CIA assassin and psychogenic amnesiac Jason Bourne.[3] The film picks up the storyline from the previous film, and continues Bourne's saga after he escapes from authorities in Moscow. The script was written by Tony Gilroy, Scott Z. Burns, George Nolfi and an uncredited Tom Stoppard.[4] The producers were Frank Marshall, Pat Crowley and Paul L. Sandberg.
The Bourne Ultimatum was produced by Universal Pictures and was released on August 3, 2007, in North America, where it grossed $69.3 million in ticket sales in its first weekend of release, making it the highest August opening in the U.S.[5] and Matt Damon's highest grossing film with him in the lead. Although all three films have been commercially successful and critically acclaimed, The Bourne Ultimatum is the only film in the trilogy to have been nominated for any Academy Award, winning all three of its nominations for Best Film Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Sound Editing at the 80th Academy Awards.
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Former CIA assassin Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) eludes Moscow police and goes into hiding after being shot by Russian FSB agent Kirill (in The Bourne Supremacy). Six weeks later, The Guardian Security Correspondent Simon Ross (Paddy Considine) meets with a source to discuss Bourne and Operation Treadstone. The CIA begin tracking Ross when he mentions "Operation Blackbriar" on a mobile phone call to his editor. Bourne travels to Paris to inform Marie's brother, Martin (Daniel Brühl), of her death and assures him he's hunting her killers. In London, Bourne meets with Ross at Waterloo Station after learning of Ross' investigation of Treadstone. When Bourne realizes that the CIA is tracking Ross, he helps him evade capture, but Ross deviates from Bourne's instructions and is killed by Blackbriar "asset" (assassin) Paz (Édgar Ramírez) on orders from Blackbriar's director Noah Vosen (David Strathairn).
CIA Director Ezra Kramer (Scott Glenn) sends Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), who unsuccessfully hunted Bourne six weeks earlier, to help Vosen after he spots Bourne in a CCTV camera feed. After searching Ross' notes, they deduce that his source was Neal Daniels (Colin Stinton), CIA Station Chief in Madrid, who was formerly involved in Treadstone and is actively involved in Blackbriar. Bourne, having taken Ross' bag after he was killed, follows the notes in his notebook to Daniels' Madrid office but finds it empty. Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), a former Treadstone support technician, arrives shortly after Bourne incapacitates the CIA field team sent by Vosen and Landy to capture him. She decides to help Bourne escape another incoming CIA squad and tells him Daniels fled to Tangier. It is implied that Parsons and Bourne had a deep, possibly romantic relationship before he lost his memory.
Upon arriving in Tangier, Parsons hacks into the CIA database to locate Daniels but fails, finding that Blackbriar asset Desh Bouksani (Joey Ansah) has been tasked with killing him. Vosen learns of Parsons' log-in attempt and orders Desh to kill her as well as Bourne, a decision Landy disagrees with. Afterwards, Vosen calls Kramer and confirms their intentions to use Landy as the scapegoat if things go wrong. Bourne tails Desh to Daniels but fails to prevent Daniels' death by a roadside bomb. He does, however, protect Parsons by strangling Desh after an intense hand-to-hand fight and later sends her into hiding. Upon examining the contents of Daniels' charred briefcase, Bourne finds the address of the deep cover CIA bureau in New York City where Vosen directs Blackbriar.
Bourne travels to New York; Landy receives a phone call (in a repetition of the final scene of The Bourne Supremacy) which is revealed to be tapped by Vosen. Landy thanks Bourne for the tape he sent her which revealed the corrupt dealings of former Treadstone director Ward Abbott, and also provides him that his real name is David Webb and his birth date is "4/15/71". While speaking with Landy, Bourne notices Vosen storing highly classified materials in a safe in his office. Bourne tells Landy to "get some rest" because she "looks tired", which she and Vosen both understand to mean that he's currently surveilling her. Vosen then intercepts a text message sent to Landy from Bourne advising a location for a meet and leaves his office with a team to follow her. Bourne breaks into Vosen's office and steals classified Blackbriar documents and Vosen sends Paz after him, resulting in a car chase which ends with Paz forcing Bourne's stolen police car into a concrete divider. Bourne gets out and holds Paz at gunpoint before sparing his life and continuing on to 415 East 71st Street (reference to the "4/15/71" from Landy), memories of which were triggered by the false birthday he was given by Landy. Vosen also figures out Landy's code and warns Dr. Albert Hirsch (Albert Finney), who ran Treadstone's behavior modification program, that Bourne is en route.
Landy meets Bourne outside the building and admits to her change of heart; that she's helping him because she hadn't signed up for programs like Treadstone and Blackbriar. Bourne gives her the Blackbriar files before going inside and Landy faxes them to a secondary witness with Vosen arriving just as the last page is successfully sent. Bourne meets with Hirsch in an upper level room and, with Hirsch's help, finally recollects that he was not forced into the program, but in fact volunteered. He proclaims to no longer be "Jason Bourne" and flees from Vosen's pursuing team to the roof. There, Paz confronts Bourne with why he didn't kill him when he had the chance. Bourne questions Paz as to his motives and repeats the dying words of "The Professor", a Treadstone assassin he killed years earlier (in The Bourne Identity): "Look at us... Look at what they make you give." Paz lowers his gun as Bourne runs to jump off the roof, but Vosen appears and shoots at Bourne as he leaps into the East River below.
Some time later, Landy is shown testifying before the Senate regarding Blackbriar. Parsons watches a television news broadcast about the exposure of Operation Blackbriar, the arrests of Hirsch and Vosen, a criminal investigation against Kramer for authorizing the operation, and that David Webb, a.k.a. Jason Bourne, was reportedly shot and fell into the East River. Upon hearing that his body has not been found after a three-day search, Parsons smiles; Bourne is shown swimming away underwater after his fall.
The Bourne Ultimatum was filmed at Pinewood Studios near London and in multiple locations around the world, including Tangier, London, Paris, Madrid (as itself and double for Turin), Berlin (as double for Moscow), New York City, and other locations in the U.S.[6][7]
In the audio commentary for the DVD release of The Bourne Ultimatum, director Paul Greengrass confirmed the following scenes were deliberate allusions to scenes from the previous installments of the Bourne film franchise.[8] They include:
As with the previous films in the trilogy, the score was composed by John Powell. A new version of Moby's "Extreme Ways", entitled "Extreme Ways (Bourne's Ultimatum)", was recorded for the film's end credits.
The Bourne Ultimatum was released nationwide on August 30, 2007.[13]
In addition to the stand alone DVD release, there is a limited edition 'The Jason Bourne Collection' gift set, featuring all three films on DVD and a bonus disc with a myriad of bonus features such as deleted scenes and featurettes. The gift set features Swiss Bank safe deposit box packaging including foreign currency and a Jason Bourne passport.[16][17]
The film and special features on the HD DVD version are presented in 2:35:1 Widescreen high definition 1080i and offer Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless and Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 audio options.[15]
The Bourne Ultimatum earned $69.3 million during its opening weekend at the box office, a record for a single opening in August[18] and $442.8 million worldwide as of December 14, 2007.[1] As of August 2009, the film garners a 94% "Certified Fresh" rating (208 positive out of 223 reviews total) at Rotten Tomatoes,[18] higher than either predecessor.[19][20] The film had a rating of 85/100 on Metacritic, again higher than the first two films.[21] At the end of its theatrical release, the film grossed at total of $227,471,070 in the U.S., making it the highest grossing film in the series.
Like its predecessor, The Bourne Supremacy, the film was criticized for its overuse of "shaky camera" work, as Richard Corliss of Time magazine, in an otherwise positive review, wondered "why, in the chat scenes, the camera is afflicted with Parkinson's? The film frame trembles, obscures the speaker with the listener's shoulder, annoys viewers and distracts them from the content of the scene."[22]
In the British press, the inclusion of a fictional journalist from the real British paper The Guardian and scenes set in the United Kingdom (particularly Waterloo railway station) were commented upon. In particular, that newspaper's reviewer joked that "dodging bullets from a CIA sniper... is the sort of thing which happens to us Guardian journalists all the time."[23][24][25][26]
The film appeared on several critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2007.[27]
The film won in all three categories in which it was nominated, giving it the second highest number of awards at the 80th Academy Awards (behind No Country for Old Men):[30]
In May 2007, prior to the release of The Bourne Ultimatum, Matt Damon claimed that he would not be interested in returning for a fourth Bourne film, stating (of his participation in the Bourne franchise): "We have ridden that horse as far as we can."[33] Damon even said in an interview on The Daily Show that director Paul Greengrass joked that a fourth film could be titled "The Bourne Redundancy".[34] Nonetheless, the financial and critical success of The Bourne Ultimatum has led to speculation in several magazines and Internet forums that another Bourne film might be produced. On February 22, 2008, Variety reported that a fourth film was indeed in the works, with both Damon and Greengrass on board.[35]
This was confirmed on June 25, 2008, by producers Frank Marshall and Pat Crowley in an interview with IESB.net. Marshall said "Hopefully they will finish the script in 2010 and that they will be shooting in the summer of 2011 for a release in 2012 and our favorite anti-hero is apparently headed to South America."[36] On October 16, 2008, it was announced that George Nolfi would write the script, with Frank Marshall producing, and Jeffrey Weiner and Henry Morrison executive producing. Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, Joan Allen, and Paul Greengrass were also attached to the film.[37][38][39] On August 21, 2009, it was announced that Universal had hired Joshua Zetumer to help write the script.[40] Paul Greengrass has announced that he will not be directing.[41]
On February 1, 2010, Damon, speaking at the UK premiere of Invictus, revealed that a follow-up to The Bourne Ultimatum was "at least five years away". Greengrass, also at the premiere, re-stated that he would not be part of any further Bourne films "unless the right script came along". However, Damon revealed that in the meantime there may be a Bourne "prequel of some kind, with another actor and another director".[42] Matt Damon reconfirmed this on a March 10, 2010 appearance of Today and that he would only be involved if Greengrass was directing.[43]
In June, 2010, it was announced that Tony Gilroy will be writing The Bourne Legacy and it will have a 2012 release date.[44] In October, 2010, it was announced that Tony Gilroy will also be directing.[45]
On October 11, 2010, Gilroy confirmed that Damon would not return, that there would be a whole new hero. Gilroy further explained,
This is not a reboot, it's a whole new chapter. The easiest way to think of it is an expansion or a reveal. Jason Bourne will not be in this film, but he's very much alive. What happened in the first three films is the trigger for The Bourne Legacy, and everyone who got into them will be rewarded for paying attention. I'm building a legend and an environment and a wider conspiracy. We're going to show you the bigger picture, the bigger canvas... The world we're making enhances and advances and invites Jason Bourne's reappearance somewhere down the road."[46]
On April 21, 2011, it was confirmed that the lead role would be played by Jeremy Renner in the sequel, The Bourne Legacy. Filming is expected to start in September 2011, and a release date is set for August 2012.[47]
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