#Bourne Vs. Bond: Director Paul Greengrass Reflects on Debate with New Perspective

With the huge success of the Daniel Craig-starring James Bond movies, people have quickly forgotten the creative sorry state that the iconic MI6 agent was in before 2006’s Casino Royale. Heavily reliant on cartoonish CGI and ludicrously over-the-top villains, the Bond renaissance grounded the British spy in something more akin to reality. This idea was inarguably sparked by the popularity and quality of director Paul Greengrass’ Bourne movies, something which Greengrass is now more than happy about.

“To be clear, whatever my feelings expressed then towards the character, they were not expressed towards the franchise. Good for them. It’s interesting that when Jason Bourne came on the scene, I think it was a bit of a wake-up call for James Bond. But my word, how well they’ve responded since. So fair play to them – they shoved my comments down my throat!”

The earlier comments to which Paul Greengrass is referring to were said by the filmmaker back in 2006, evidently a time when Greengrass had a very different opinion of Ian Fleming’s iconic secret agent.

“I think there’s a big difference between James Bond and Jason Bourne. I think James Bond is the secret agent who likes being a secret agent and likes killing people. He’s a misogynist, an old-fashioned imperialist, and Jason Bourne is an outsider on the run and he’s one of us and he’s fighting against them, I think. That’s the profound difference, and that’s why I like Bourne.”

The James Bond vs. Jason Bourne debate will no doubt rage on for millennia to come, but it is interesting to hear how much the Daniel Craig era of Bond movies have won over Paul Greengrass. At the time of his earlier comments, the Bond movie that was being compared to the Bourne franchise was Pierce Brosnan’s final outing in Die Another Day. Since that installment, which featured invisible cars and a giant, earth-orbiting laser cannon, things have vastly changed for 007.

Craig is due to return as Bond for the final time the upcoming No Time to Die. picking up five years after the capture of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, James Bond has left active service. He is approached by Felix Leiter, his friend, and a CIA officer, who enlists his help in the search for Valdo Obruchev, a missing scientist. When it becomes apparent that Obruchev was abducted, Bond must confront a danger the likes of which the world has never seen before. The movie has been delayed several times but is now scheduled to be released on November 25 in the United States and November 12 in the United Kingdom.

As for Bourne, producer Frank Marshall recently revealed his eagerness to return to the action-packed world of Jason Bourne again, with different creative teams than the original saying, “I do like the Bourne series, and I do think that’s an opportunity for different filmmakers to come in now. So, I’m hoping that we can find a new story for Bourne and a new filmmaker. We are looking.”

This comes to us from Empire.

Topics: James Bond, Bourne