THE BOURNE LEGACY – Production Notes - I Watch Mike

Byer will not hesitate to burn Outcome to the ground.
The producers and the studio agreed immediately
and were enthusiastic about this turn of events. Says
Marshall: “One of the best things about the movie
was getting to work with Tony as a director. I’ve
been involved with him on the other three movies as
the writer, but way back on The Bourne Identity, I
knew that someday he was going to direct. He was in
the cutting room and making the kind of suggestions
and solving the kind of problems in the way that
a director would think about them. So, it’s not a
surprise that he’s directing this film but it didn’t start
out that way.”
To collaborate on the screenplay, Gilroy called
upon his brother, fellow screenwriter Dan Gilroy, for
their first professional teaming in many years and they
began work. Notes Dan Gilroy of the collaboration:
“Tony and I actually co-wrote several unproduced
screenplays when we were first starting. It was an
easy fit then and pretty effortless now. Our process
is outlining the story together and then leapfrogging
scenes or sequences. When we’re working, it’s seven
days a week—long hours. I’m in L.A, and he’s in New
York, but these days distance doesn’t matter. There’s
no ego involved. Whatever works gets used, and there
were no disagreements or arguments. It was a blast.
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We were both on the same page and
committed to tuning every element
to the highest possible degree.”
The two writers expanded
upon the research that Tony
Gilroy had done for the treatment,
while also developing the intense
drama of the story. Continues Dan
Gilroy: “We hope Legacy lives
up to its title by expanding the
mythology in smart, imaginative
and absolutely realistic directions.
All technology referenced in the
film is either in development or in
use by the U.S. intel community.
The hardest part of the job was creating a character
with a need that makes the film personal, and Tony
had the core of that before I came on. Aaron Cross
has a primal need that creates constant intimacy with
the audience. The emotional journey is always in the
foreground, which for me is the hallmark of all great
action movies.”
Marshall was thrilled with the resulting script. He
commends: “The genius idea was Tony and Dan’s:
Expand the world that Bourne lived in and see what else
was out there and who is controlling whom. This way, we
could build upon the world the audience had discovered
via Jason Bourne and then have an opportunity to see
new characters and the bigger picture.”
Crowley agrees that the writer/director and his
brother nailed it. The producer marvels at their crafting
of a language specific to this series and how they
connected everything in this world: “Tony’s obsessed
with the intelligence community. He lives and breathes
it, asking, ‘How would these people think, how would
they act, and what are the relationships that you would
have in the intelligence community?’ It thrilled me that
we have a writer who is the soul of the whole series—
who shows that he is an amazing director with two well
received movies—come on board to direct this one.”