Of all the film series to come out of Hollywood in the last decade and a half, few have captivated audiences more than the Bourne franchise. Jason Bourne, the highly-skilled covert agent with a memory problem, became a real cash cow for Universal during its initial trilogy run, and the hope was the name alone would be enough to propel the Matt Damon-less sidequel, The Bourne Legacy, to success back in 2012. However, the Jeremy Renner vehicle only managed to make $276 million worldwide, which isn’t terrible, but not what the series had come to expect given that The Bourne Ultimatum made $442 million, higher than any of the other previous entries in the series.

Despite that performance, Universal’s been dead set on getting a new Jeremy Renner Bourne film into theaters, so much so that they set Fast & Furious director Justin Lin to helm the fifth film in the franchise for an August 2015 release. Yesterday, though, it was reported the film was pushed to July 2016 so Straight Outta Compton could have the August 2015 date. But now, Latino-Review says otherwise:

According to the site’s sources, the reason the next Bourne was pushed nearly a year was because… wait for it… Matt Damon is coming back!

Yes, you read that right. Jason Bourne is (reportedly) coming back to his namesake franchise. Despite Damon saying he would only entertain the idea of returning if Bourne Supremacy and Bourne Ultimatum director Paul Greengrass did as well, the actor does seem to be heading back to his old stomping grounds. Supposedly, this is because of a lot of different factors, one of which being the actor’s lack of a box-office smash in the last few years.

If this ends up being true (and we really want it to be true), we’ll be first in line for the next Bourne when it hits theaters July 2016.

Do you want to see Damon return to the Bourne franchise? Let us know in the comments below.

[HT: Latino-Review]