Bourne: The points you were never told about

It’s one of the biggest spy franchises in memory, yet don’t be fooled into thinking that you’ve been told everything about the Bourne movie series.

The latest installment has recently been released and having grossed almost $400m, it would be safe to assume that it’s been another resounding success for the creators.

David Berkowitz Chicago is just one of countless critics to heap praise on the movie and it looks set to become one of the biggest blockbusters of 2016. However, in amongst all the action, what are the minor details that you may not have been told about in all of the marketing spiel?

Matt Damon wasn’t the original Bourne

While Matt Damon might be one of the biggest actors in the world and is pretty much synonymous with the whole Bourne franchise – this wasn’t actually his part to begin with.

The makers of the series approached Brad Pitt first, only to see the Fight Club star turn it down as he proceeded to film Spy Game at the time.

Apparently, it wasn’t just Pitt who was in the running to take the role either. Matthew McConaughey, Russell Crowe and Sylvester Stallone were all names that were considered, before Damon was selected and suffice to say, no party has looked back since.

Don’t worry about reading the books first

At this point it’s also worth pointing out that the film series is based on a novel published by Robert Ludlum.

Just like most books which make it onto the big screen, there are actually few similarities here though. To put this into context, Tony Gilroy (who was one of the screenwriters), hadn’t even read the first book before he put together the movie.

In the book, there are other villains which are given prominent roles. For example, The Bourne Identity would have focused on a terrorist called Carlos had it stuck to the original novel.

Damon keeps special effects to a minimum

In some movies, it would be fair to say that the actors may “cheat” a little. The same cannot be said about Matt Damon when it comes to this series.

Damon has gone on record saying that he took six months to learn martial arts to help his role in the movies, as well as hitting the gym on a daily basis to get to the size that we have all become accustomed to. When you also consider the six months boxing training he did – it’s fair to say that Matt is almost like Jason in every way possible.

There are no James Bond gadgets here

There have been plenty of occasions where Bourne and James Bond have been compared and in truth, it’s no surprise. They are both spy films after all.

However, while a lot of the gadgets available to Bond are completely out of this world, the same cannot be said of the Bourne films. In fact, if you wanted to, you could purchase each and every gadget that is used in the films – there’s nothing out of the ordinary in this sense.