Paul Greengrass Says He Was Asked to Direct a James Bond Film
Paul Greengrass says he was asked to direct a James Bond film after he made The Bourne Supremacy, and he says he would never take the job. The director made the remarks on the podcast The Rest Is Classified, as Deadline reported on 21 October 2026.
Greengrass compared moving from the Bourne films to Bond to a Manchester United player signing for Manchester City, a rival club. He also spoke warmly of Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson, the producers who run the Bond series. Radio Times had reported the previous day that the approach came after the success of the 2004 film.
Greengrass directed The Bourne Supremacy and went on to direct further entries in the Bourne series for Universal. The films are based on Robert Ludlum's novels, and Matt Damon plays the title character, a former spy with amnesia. Together, the series has taken more than $1.64 billion at the global box office, according to Deadline.
The franchise may not be finished. In June, Damon told Parade magazine that he was open to reviving the series, and that work on a new story was ongoing. Deadline reported at the time that Damon said a Bourne film without Greengrass would be missing something, given the criticism of the director's shaky, close-up style.
The most recent Bourne film with both men, Jason Bourne (2016), was a box office success. By the weekend of 26 to 28 August 2016, its international earnings had reached $197.7 million, with $149.3 million in the United States and Canada, and it was back at number one, according to Deadline's reporting from that weekend.
A new book also looks at Greengrass's part in building the series. The Times reported that the book tells the inside story of how he turned Damon's Jason Bourne into a global franchise.
Greengrass's Bond remarks do not change any release plans. The Bourne series has no new film date, and Damon's comments describe the search for a story as still under way.
