If they could just find a way to not remake The Bourne Supremacy yet again, that would be terrific.I wanted to love Jason Bourne.
So, yes, we'll probably see a Damon/Greengrass Bourne movie in our future. As such, it was one of the few big franchise offerings of the year thus far that didn't require mega-bucks to be a relative mega hit.Īs a result of a budget that didn't require a $400 million global gross as the bar for success, said $404.8m (and counting) worldwide cume qualifies as a big win. Jason Bourne didn't have fantastical special effects sequences or outer space adventure, offering comparatively grounded chases, fights, and shootouts. I don't think anyone at Walt Disney or Marvel were concerned about the alleged $250m they spent on Captain America: Civil War.īut, my feelings about the film as a piece of art aside, Jason Bourne stands as a prime example of a franchise offering that showed a genuine interest in the return of an old character, as well as an excellent example of responsible budgeting with the desired result. And, yes, if you have a certain amount of security/goodwill, you can overspend and still relax. X-Men: Apocalypse made a lot less than X-Men: Days of Future Past ($543m versus $747m worldwide) but was much cheaper as well ($178m versus $200m), so it was still a solid hit. Ghostbusters cost way too much at $144 million making its $228m total a disaster. What constitutes responsible budgeting varies on a case-by-case basis. For that matter, $165m isn't necessarily an irresponsible number for a sequel to Independence Day.
We saw that with Paramount/Viacom Inc.'s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows ($245 million worldwide on a $135m budget, just $10m more than the 2014 installment) or Walt Disney's Alice Through the Looking Glass ($299m on a $170m budget, less than the $200m budget of Alice in Wonderland). You can budget responsibly and still get winged. At that $120 million, the other above-noted summer movies would have been relative hits at least regarding budget versus global gross. It certainly didn't have to be the biggest Bourne movie ever. Bigger or smaller final totals notwithstanding, the Matt Damon superspy sequel didn't have to make a bazillion dollars to be a hit. Universal's Warcraft and 20th Century Fox's ID4 2 both cost around $165 million while Paramount's Star Trek and Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc.'s Tarzan both cost around $180m.
But the difference between Jason Bourne and those films, as well as the $433m-grossing Warcraft, is that Jason Bourne cost noticeably less than those movies. release isn't that far off from the $383m-grossing Independence Day: Resurgence ($383m), to say nothing of The Legend of Tarzan ($353m) or Star Trek Beyond ($337m). But the $400m global total for the Universal/Comcast Corp. Now you can make the case that $120 million isn't "small" or "cheap" concerning production budgets. 'Jason Bourne' image courtesy of Universal