You’re Officially Free to Start Making ‘Bourne Again’ Jokes

Fans of action flicks and fairly obvious puns, rejoice.more

Matt Damon has confirmed the long-circulating rumors that he will reprise his role as Jason Bourne in the next installment of the successful film franchise.

“It’ll be in 2016 when the movie will actually come out," Damon said Friday in an interview with E! "Paul Greengrass is going to do another one and that’s all I ever said. I just needed him to say yes."

Damon played Bourne in the first three big-screen adaptations of Robert Ludlan's popular book series—The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum—but he sat out 2012's The Bourne Legacy. Also absent from that project was Greengrass, who'd helmed Supremacy and Ultimatum. In 2013, the director told Deadline that he'd had his fill of the spy saga.

"I discovered in my heart I didn’t have another one in me," Greengrass said. "I would be going through the motions and I could never do that. On the first two Bourne films, I gave 1000 percent commitment. I was full of new ideas when I came in and took over, I knew there were things I could do and had a vision. The best thing was to move on, have someone else come in and make their mark on it."

Earlier this year, Damon confirmed that he and Greengrass had "never been able to come up with a story," and he urged fans to send Universal their ideas. Whether the studio jumped on some fanfic or hired a pro to work on the script, Damon had better get ready for lots of running and jumping and really bad Bourne puns.

Photo by Koichi Kamoshida, Getty Images