The Bourne Ultimatum is tracking better than expected. Yesterday on it’s first full day of release the movie made an estimated $25.5 million which if all goes well will add up to $75 million by the end of the weekend equalling the highest opening of Matt Damon’s career and totally eclipsing the opening of the last two movies (Identity – $27.1 million, Supremacy – $52.5).
What would you say contributed to this, I would say three factors…
1) This is the first movie in many weeks that is purely aimed at an intelligent audience. This isn’t Die Hard and nor is it Transformers. This was a film for people who don’t want to leave their intelligence at home.
2) The numbers in the franchise have been rising. More and more are becoming fans of the series after seeing the movies on television and DVD and this film would seem to continue that steadying increase.
3) Great trailer and great reviews = money. 1408 showed it earlier this year when it did way better than expected. If a movie is reviewed well and has a good trailer, people are going to see it. The Bourne Ultimatum is currently tracking 92% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
Is this the end of the Bourne Series?
Well it’s a franchise that is making money and growing quite rapidly so I’m sure the studio will be interested in keeping it going. Matt Damon has already stated that this will be his last film, so that obviously brings up a great problem for the studio in trying to replace him with a strong enough actor to carry on the franchise.
The Bourne Ultimatum will certainly be the last Robert Ludlum adapted novel (the author now being dead) but the series did continue under Eric Van Lustbader who carried on the series for two further books. Could one of those be optioned perhaps?
source – fantasy moguls, slash film
3 Comments
Universal owns the movie rights to the Bourne character. And unless I’m mistaken I believe they have the same deal that Paramount has with the Tom Clancy/Jack Ryan franchise: they can make more entries in the series that have nothing to do with any pre-existing movel. That’s what Paramount is rumored to be doing (or at least heavily considering) with the Ryan franchise.
Is this the end of Bourne? Of course not. Universal sees him as their answer to James Bond and considering that Stephen Sommers (one of my favorite wrirer-directors) hasn’t made a movie for them since 2004 -that’s a long time to go without a blockbuster- there’s no way they’ll let this golden goose get away. I wonder who they’ll cast next. Colin Farrel perhaps?
This is a solid series and im really looking forward to “Ultimatum” but I think they should leave it alone after this, I know they won’t but I think they should.
Guys, it’s one hell of a movie:
http://therecshow.com/2007/08/04/the-bourne-ultimatum-a-review/