Matt Damon says Jason Bourne’s identity journey will conclude in new film

Our first real look at JASON BOURNE arrived just a day ago during the Super Bowl and I have to say, I'm officially back on-board the Jason Bourne train. The last time we saw Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) in THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, he'd discovered his true identity, exposed Operation Blackbriar, and escaped from from those out to kill him. At the time, both Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass felt that this was the end of Bourne's story, hence why we were treated to the Jason Bourne-less THE BOURNE LEGACY, but Matt Damon told Entertainment Weekly that JASON BOURNE won't be the beginning of a new chapter, but rather the conclusion of the journey that began in THE BOURNE IDENTITY.

We talked a lot about what state he should be in, and where we came to was that if you found him fat and happy and content, you don’t really have a movie. So we talked about how at the end of Bourne Ultimatum, he gets his memory back and it kind of completed that identity journey for him. But does that complete things for the character or not? And the conclusion we came to is no – we find him in a very dark and tortured place. He’s living with the same things as he was before, and then he goes to find Julia Stiles’ character, who basically says, “Just because you remember everything, doesn’t mean you know everything.” So you find him in a place that’s dark and unresolved. This is the completion of this journey that started in the Bourne Identity. It’s part of the first three [movies], it’s not a whole new chapter. It feels like the conclusion, even though we’re not saying it’s the conclusion, it feels like the conclusion of my identity journey. It goes deeper than Ultimatum, basically.

Matt Damon gave a hint about the opening sequence of JASON BOURNE, saying that the film will open "with an austerity riot in Athens, and that’s very much by design. It feels current with what’s going in our world. You’re always creating an alternate reality with Bourne, but you want to feel like it’s our world." Along with new locations, JASON BOURNE will be bringing a few new characters into Bourne's world, including those played by Alicia Vikander and Tommy Lee Jones.

You have to do something great and new, and Alicia is our great and new. She plays a new character we’re introducing, and she’s a specialist in cyber. Instead of just the three arenas of warfare — air, land and sea — there’s now this fourth element: cyber. The implications of that are huge, and she’s representing that in the movie. We also have Tommy Lee Jones in the movie, and he’s kind of representing the analog CIA in the way the old guard thinks. Those two go head to head quite a bit. Introducing those two new characters, I think, is probably one of the biggest trailblazing things we’ve done in this movie. One thing about these movies is that the casts are so good. I always feel so amazed at the people we get. If we have any kind of formula, it’s hiring the very best actors we can to fill out these roles, and Alicia and Tommy Lee are two absolute heavyweights.

JASON BOURNE opens in theaters on July 29, 2016.