Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne Return Gets Official Response From Original Franchise Director

Published Sep 12, 2026, 10:00 AM EDT

Grant Hermanns is a TV News Editor, Interview Host and Reviewer for ScreenRant, having joined the team in early 2021. He got his start in the industry with Moviepilot, followed by working at ComingSoon.net. When not indulging in his love of film/TV, Grant is making his way through his gaming backlog and exploring the world of Dungeons & Dragons with friends.

Matt Damon's upcoming Jason Bourne 6 return has gotten his original director's seal of approval.

After initially returning for the 2016 sequel, Damon's future in the action espionage franchise remained unclear, particularly as it went down the path of another spinoff with the short-lived Treadstone TV series. Reports of a sixth Jason Bourne movie began swirling in late 2023, with All Quiet on the Western Front's Edward Berger said to be attached to direct, albeit subsequent reports have varied as to the status of the sequel, particularly after a rights shuffle in mid-2025.

Now, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter for his new historical epic The Uprising, Paul Greengrass was asked his thoughts on Damon returning for a new Jason Bourne movie without him. The Oscar nominee, who launched the franchise as the director of the first three and fifth installments, expressed being "very happy" to get to follow the new film from the sidelines, being "really excited" about watching the upcoming sequel once it moves forward:

Paul Greengrass: Ed Berger is doing it, and it’ll be fantastic. It’s a great franchise with a great character, and I can’t wait to see the next one.

Bourne 6 passing the reins to Berger marks the second time in the franchise that Greengrass himself has not been at the helm of one of the films. The last time a director took over was with 2012's The Bourne Legacy, which also marked the first installment not to be led by Damon, instead shifting to Jeremy Renner, while franchise writer Tony Gilroy stepped into the director's chair for the spinoff.

While certainly not the first filmmaker to pass the baton to someone else, Greengrass' encouragement of Bourne 6's development and Damon's return is sure to be a meaningful one for fans of the franchise. With no production start date set for the new sequel, it will also be interesting to see if Berger and Greengrass have a proper conversation about the film in the near future, and the latter gives the former any advice for the project.

After a lot of back-and-forth updates, Greengrass' comments come after Jason Bourne 6's best progress update from Damon yet this past July, when the star confirmed that Berger is still actively "trying" to get the film off the ground and had sent him the first act of the story, which he described as being "really good." This also raised speculation as to whether Berger would also be penning the script, a return to screenwriting for him after only directing his past two films, Conclave and Ballad of a Small Player.

With development on the script steadily gaining steam, the bigger question now becomes when Jason Bourne 6 may look to start filming. The long-awaited Ocean's 14, penned by George Clooney with David Leitch reportedly in talks to direct, was expected to begin filming sometime this year, and its large-scale cast and heist nature would prove a hefty scheduling conflict to overcome. However, with Warner Bros. also pushing ahead on their Ocean's prequel film, the long-awaited fourquel may get pushed back just enough for Damon and Berger to finally get their sequel off the ground.

The Bourne Franchise is an action-thriller series conceived by Robert Ludlum in the novel series. Film adaptations began with The Bourne Identity in 2002, with Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, a man who, after regaining his memories, learns that he was a top CIA assassin, with his former employer trying to kill him to tie up loose ends.