“Bourne 4″ Moving Ahead With Nolfi Penning

Universal is moving forward with a fourth Jason Bourne movie, tentatively titled “Bourne 4“. The Bourne Ultimatum writer George Nolfi has been hired to pen the sequel. Nolfi’s other credits include The Sentinel, Ocean’s Twelve and Timeline.

Director Paul Greengrass and star Matt Damon are attached to the new film. The film will be produced by Frank Marshall and executive produced by Jeffrey Weiner and Henry Morrison.

This Bourne movie may still however, end up being significantly different from the others. The first three movies were loosely based on a series of books by Robert Ludlum. There is a fourth book, but it wasn’t written by Ludlum and back in June, producer Frank Marshall indicated they’d ignore the fourth book and go their own direction with the series. At the time, he hinted that Bourne may be skipping out on his European locales for a trip to South America, and if previous talk turns out to be true, they should start shooting it this coming summer.

The first three films have brought in a combined total of $524 million at the domestic box-office.

MGM Buys Ludlum’s ‘The Matarese Circle’ for $3 million

With an eye on the success of the Bourne spy franchise, MGM has snapped up movie rights to another Robert Ludlum thriller.

In its first major material deal made since Mary Parent took over as head of MGM’s worldwide motion picture group, the studio ponied up for “The Matarese Circle,” a 1979 book by Robert Ludlum.

The book sold for $3 million, with another seven-figures to be paid to screenwriters Michael Brandt and Derek Haas according to Variety.

Ryan Kavanaugh’s Relativity Media will co-finance the film, and Denzel Washington is attached to star.

Like many books by the late Ludlum, “The Matarese Circle” is set during the Cold War. The book pairs rival spies, one from the CIA and the other from the KGB, who bury the hatchet for the moment because only they possess the smarts and killing abilities to go up against an international circle of criminals called the Matarese. Insiders said the Cold War tensions will be dropped and the storyline contemporized.

Ludlum wrote a second book — “The Matarese Countdown” — that was not part of the deal. More than likely, a screen sequel would come from an original story.

While MGM’s $3 million buy is likely the largest sum paid for a book so far this year, it’s not extreme for Ludlum. Universal recently reengaged Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon to return for a fourth Jason Bourne thriller, and in 2005, Paramount paid $4 million for Ludlum’s “The Chancellor Manuscript,” a thriller that sold with a Leonardo DiCaprio attachment.