Matt Damon Blasts Tony Gilroy's Bourne Ultimatum Script: 'It Was Unreadable'
"I don't blame Tony for taking a boatload of money and handing in what he handed in," Matt Damon told GQ recently about Gilroy's script for the third Jason Bourne film, The Bourne Ultimatum -- a script Gilroy agreed to write for "an exorbitant amount of money" as long as he only had to provide one draft and pay no regard to studio notes. "It's just that it was unreadable. This is a career-ender. I mean, I could put this thing up on eBay and it would be game over for that dude. It's terrible. It's really embarrassing. He was having a go, basically, and he took his money and left." Gilroy wrote and directed the latest Bourne film The Bourne Legacy, due in theaters this August with Jeremy Renner starring. [GQ via indieWire]
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I find this ironic since The Bourne Ultimatum was the best film of the trilogy. Maybe we should be questioning Damon's taste in screenplay's.
"Maybe we should be questioning Damon's taste in screenplays"
He did write Good Will Hunting, afterall.
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The script was rewritten by George Nolfi and Scott Z. Burns. That's why it worked. Gilroy has been pretty vocal in his active dislike of Paul Greengrass. Gee, why, Tony.?Because he managed to find writers who could turn your sow's ear into a silk purse? I imagine Bourne Legacy will be cack. He also wrote State of Play and wrote and directed Duplicity -- both terrible films. I'm with Damon on this.
That's kind of an unfair pull quote here. If you read the full article Damon then contacts the reporter to apologize for speaking that way and takes all the blame for saying something stupid that he should have kept between himself and Gilroy.
Even if those things are true, it's unprofessional to publicly dish the dirt on one of your colleagues. All that really matters is the movie turned out great.
If you read the whole piece, it's mostly beyond laudatory in tone. Seems to me like Amy Wallace just needed to throw in something controversial to spice things up, because in context it's just Damon being himself -- honest, straightforward -- about a sequence of events behind the scenes of the making of the Bourne movie.
Personally, I like that about him -- he speaks plain in a business that is normally so artificial. Gotta love Matt Damon!
You're absolutely correct. But as noted he realized that and contacted the writer to say exactly what you commented on and to take the blame for speaking stupidly. The point being made was that it seemed like a "Headline" effort rather than truthful reporting.
Pretty tasteless on Damon's part. Judging a writer on their first draft would be like judging an actor based on their worst take. It's not Gilroy's fault the studio agreed to his assanine terms. The joke's on them.
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