There is a pretty good reason why Matt Damon went missing from the "Bourne" franchise for a while, but now the actor is back to reprise the role in "Bourne 5" with bigger and better things in store for his character.
"I really liked the franchise and the character but I didn't see a way to go," he told Variety. "But I wasn't giving up on the idea of doing it. Paul and I kind of talked years ago about perhaps the way forward was just to let time pass and allow the world to change a little."
In "Bourne 5," Damon said that his character will face a similar fate like in "The Bourne Ultimatum."
"The third act actually in the movie dovetails with the third act of 'The Bourne Supremacy.' So technically when the Bourne character disappears, it's still 2004. So when this next one comes out in '16, it will have been 12 years - in movie years - that the character as been off the grid. So what's happened in those intervening years gives you a story," he further explained.
As to how the movie is coming along, Damon shared that they are right on schedule.
"We're, like, probably about halfway through. We started in September but they're going dark for most of December and cutting basically the first two acts. And then we have the third act and then whatever we owe from the first two acts," he said.
Damon also discussed the different set locations of the new film and revealed an exciting action sequence for "Bourne 5," which he hopes he would not mess up.
"We were in Tenerife, which is supposed to be Athens. It would be like a nighttime riot scene to kind of start the movie. And then England, Berlin a little bit for about a week, and a little bit in D.C. Then we're going to Vegas for the third act... Big car chase on the strip," he teased.
The star of "The Martian" also could not help but talk about another big franchise, which has recently been released - J.J. Abrams' "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." Damon said that he is a huge fan of the franchise, and even saw the first movie 18 times.
"And that was back in the day where you'd go down to the movie theater and we'd see it - sometimes sit twice through it. I was 7 and it was literally just something we did," he said. "I just remembered that it was in the theater for months and months and months and if a week would go by and we hadn't seen it, we'd just go back down and see it again. So by the time the third one came around, I probably saw the third one five or six times."
"Bourne 5" will be released on July 29, 2016.
