Matt Damon Confirms Work on New Jason Bourne Film With Conclave Director Edward Berger

Matt Damon has confirmed he is actively developing a sixth Jason Bourne film with director Edward Berger, the filmmaker behind All Quiet on the Western Front and the recent papal thriller Conclave. The actor revealed the update during an appearance on ESPN's The Rich Eisen Show, explaining that he and Berger are currently trying to crack a story that lives up to the first three entries in the franchise. For fans who have waited nearly a decade since Jason Bourne (2016) left the series in a lukewarm reception, this marks the most concrete sign yet that a proper return is actually moving forward.

The project has been circling since 2023 when initial reports surfaced about a franchise revival, though Damon's involvement was not guaranteed at the time. Universal Pictures picked up the rights in 2025, but the ten-year gap since the last Damon-led entry has only raised the stakes. Damon made it clear that the goal is not simply to extend the brand but to deliver a film that feels essential, telling Eisen that if they proceed, "we want it to be like the first three." That standard — set by The Bourne Identity (2002), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) — remains the benchmark every subsequent entry has struggled to clear.

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Damon spoke candidly about the creative process, noting that he and Berger are "just trying to figure it out" and "trying to nail the story down because I'd love to do it." The actor's enthusiasm is tempered by realism: he knows the franchise cannot coast on name recognition alone.

"It's tough because it's not built like a James Bond, where every movie is its own mission. People can even change the person playing Bond. It's a linear story, so it makes it more challenging to do a sequel where you're giving people what they want, but also enough new stuff. It's a tricky one."

Matt Damon, Actor

Berger's involvement adds genuine weight to the project. His work on All Quiet on the Western Front earned widespread acclaim for its visceral, grounded approach to action and trauma — qualities that align neatly with the Bourne template. Conclave further demonstrated his ability to sustain tension in confined, dialogue-driven spaces. If the new film leans into the psychological weight of Bourne's past rather than simply choreographing another round of hand-to-hand combat, Berger could be the right filmmaker to recalibrate the series.

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Damon identified the core structural challenge that separates Bourne from its most obvious peer: the James Bond franchise.

"It's tough because it's not built like a James Bond, where every movie is its own mission. People can even change the person playing Bond. It's a linear story, so it makes it more challenging to do a sequel where you're giving people what they want, but also enough new stuff. It's a tricky one."

Matt Damon, Actor

The comparison to Bond is instructive. Bond thrives on episodic reinvention; each film resets the board. Bourne, by contrast, is defined by continuity — amnesia, identity recovery, institutional conspiracy, and the slow peeling back of a single protagonist's past. The Bourne Legacy (2012) attempted a lateral expansion with Jeremy Renner's Aaron Cross, directed by Tony Gilroy, but the experiment stalled. Damon's return in 2016 brought the focus back to Jason, yet the story had nowhere new to go. A sixth film must either advance the timeline meaningfully or recontextualize what came before without undermining it.

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Damon's dance card is notably full. He currently stars as Odysseus in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, a massive production that has consumed much of his recent bandwidth. Since 2023 alone, he has appeared in:

• Oppenheimer
• Ford v Ferrari
• The Last Duel
• Air
• The Rip

That he is still carving out time to develop Bourne with Berger suggests genuine creative investment rather than contractual obligation. He told Eisen he thinks "they have a line of sight on how to do it," a phrase that signals progress without promising a greenlight.

Universal's 2025 rights acquisition indicates the studio sees long-term value in the property, but no release window, script completion date, or production schedule has been announced. The franchise's last theatrical outing grossed $415 million worldwide against a $120 million budget — profitable, but far from the cultural event the originals were. For a sixth film to justify its existence, it will need more than brand loyalty; it will need a reason to exist that the last two entries could not articulate.

Bourne’s Big Gamble: Damon’s Return with a New Director

The most encouraging signal here is Damon's refusal to treat the project as a foregone conclusion. His insistence on story-first development — and his public acknowledgment of the structural trap that linear sequels fall into — suggests a level of creative discipline that the 2016 film lacked. Berger's track record with intimate, high-stakes storytelling offers a plausible path forward: a smaller, character-driven Bourne film that interrogates the cost of the protagonist's survival rather than simply sending him on another globe-trotting chase. Whether that vision survives studio notes, scheduling conflicts, and the pressure to franchise-ize remains the open question.

For now, the project exists in the space between "in development" and "actually happening." Damon's comments represent the most specific update since 2023, but they also highlight how far the film still has to go. The next milestone will be a completed script — or at least a treatment that satisfies both star and director. Until then, the franchise remains in the same limbo it has occupied for a decade: a name with legacy, waiting for a story that earns it.