In 2002’s The Bourne Identity, he tried to discover who he was. In 2004’s The Bourne Supremacy, he exacted revenge for what was done to him. Now, he is coming home and has only these words for his pursuers: “I remember everything.”
Matt Damon returns as trained assassin Jason Bourne for the latest showdown in The Bourne Ultimatum. In the follow-up to The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy—the smash hits that have earned more than $500 million at the global box office and sold almost 20 million copies in North America alone since their debut in home entertainment — Academy Award-nominated Paul Greengrass (United 93, The Bourne Supremacy) again directs a breathtaking espionage thriller that allows moviegoers to crisscross the globe and follow one man as he stays a step ahead of his would-be assassins.
In the world of action choreography, chase sequences and intricate plot switchbacks, the Bourne series has set a new standard for an entire genre. With an innovative story structure that rewards fans who have followed the series and thrills those new to it, The Bourne Ultimatum explodes with twists and surprises. Capitalizing on the increasing stature of Damon and a cast of award-winning supporting talent in The Bourne Ultimatum, internationally lauded filmmaker Greengrass understands that audiences demand intelligent espionage stories complete with heart-wrenching emotion and mindboggling action.
We find Bourne living as a man without a country or a past. Subjected to brutal training he doesn’t remember by people he can’t identify, Bourne was turned into a sophisticated human weapon—the toughest target the CIA has ever tracked. Since he was discovered floating in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Italy several years ago, he has been on a desperate quest to learn who he is and discover who taught him how to kill.
After his lover, Marie, died from an assassin’s bullet, however, all Bourne wanted was revenge. Once he found it, what he craved was to disappear and forget the life stolen from him. But a front-page story in a London newspaper that speculates about his existence ends that hope, and he finds himself once again a target. Treadstone, the top-secret black-ops program that created this super-assassin, is now defunct. It has been reimagined as the joint Department of Defense program Blackbriar, with a new generation of trained killers—hidden from domestic or foreign oversight—at the government’s disposal. To them, Bourne is a $30-million malfunctioning threat who must be taken out, once and for all. To him, they are the only link to a life he has tried in vain to forget.
Bourne has reached the end of the line. This time, he will not stop at his former masters’ empty promises or even with the killing of those who relentlessly pursue him. With nothing left to lose, he will use each nuance of his training and every finely honed instinct they taught him to come after his creators and finish it all.
His quest will take him from Moscow, Paris and Madrid to London and Tangier— evading, outsmarting and outmaneuvering Blackbriar operatives, federal agents and local police every step of the way—in a desperate quest to find answers to questions that haunt him. And Bourne’s journey will ultimately lead him to where it all began and where it must come to an end: the streets of New York City.
Jason Bourne Comes Home: The Bourne Ultimatum Is Given
Over the past five years, audiences have eagerly followed Bourne’s perilous journey. When The Bourne Identity was released in 2002, moviegoers were enthralled by the film’s independent vision that put a distinct postmillennial spin on the action-spy genre. “What surprised people was how fresh the movie was,” comments producer Frank Marshall. “It wasn’t the action movie they expected. I think they expected a film that wasn’t as brave as the choices that were made—in the telling of the story, the way it was shot and how good Matt Damon was.”
To direct the second in the series, The Bourne Supremacy, the producers turned to Paul Greengrass, a British filmmaker who had garnered critical and audience raves for his documentary and feature films—such as the internationally acclaimed Bloody Sunday and Omagh. Though he was transitioning into big-budget filmmaking, Greengrass would retain his signature handheld cameras and style of lightning-quick edits while continuing the series’ storyline of one man against a clandestine government program. The Bourne Supremacy won a litany of raves from critics, with Peter Travers of Rolling Stone effusing, “If you’ve forgotten the kick you get from watching a globe-trotting, buttkicking, whiplash-paced action movie done with humor, style and smarts, take a ride with The Bourne Supremacy.”
Greengrass’ career exploded with the thriller and his follow-up work as writer/director of 2006’s United 93. The unflinching drama told the story of the passengers and crew, their families on the ground and the flight controllers who watched in dawning horror as United Airlines Flight 93 became the fourth hijacked plane on the day of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil: September 11, 2001. Greengrass’ efforts and the film would both be put on top-10 lists, and earn the director his first Academy Award nomination for Best Director.
Now, Greengrass brings the rogue hero back to find answers about who and what Bourne is—and who made him that way—in The Bourne Ultimatum. This need for closure is what made Greengrass want to return to the series. “Bourne is a real man in a real world in pursuit of a mythic quest,” he reflects. “What’s wonderful is that it’s an oppositional story. Is he a killer, or was he made to be a killer? There is an underlying feeling that Bourne is one of us, and he’s running away from ‘them.’ He’s trying to get the answers, and he doesn’t trust them. They’re all bad, and the system’s corrupted. To convey that with a sense of excitement in a very contemporary landscape is great fun.”
A Bourne sequel would not be complete without Oscar winner Matt Damon returning in the title role to join Greengrass. The actor was pleased with the director’s desire to helm the third in the series. “Paul is one of the great directors working today,” says Damon. “He’s a real storyteller whose style is perfect for these movies, because it’s not theatrical. He’s got a way of shooting that has a very honest feel to it.”
Damon again brings to the third production the quiet intensity and quest for truth he first infused into Bourne several years ago. “Matt’s unfailingly accurate,” returns Greengrass. “There’s something about him that makes audiences know he is a good guy. He’s a wonderful player of parts where the character is actually very dark. There’s a yearning in that character to be good that speaks to people, particularly young people. Matt and I have the same instincts for Bourne, the film and the franchise.”
Producer Marshall states that Damon offers the same qualities of the protagonist from Robert Ludlum’s classic spy novels. “Matt embodies exactly what Mr. Ludlum would have wanted in the character. For example, he doesn’t look like an assassin, even though he’s a trained one; he is contemporary and able to slip invisibly into the world. That’s the character Ludlum painted.”
In keeping with the other screenplays of the Bourne series, Tony Gilroy’s story for The Bourne Ultimatum diverges from the historical plotlines of Ludlum’s novels—written in the midst of a Cold War that would be almost unrecognizable to a generation born after its end. But Ludlum’s themes of conspiracy and government programs run amok remain compelling and universally relevant. The bestselling author was long suspected of having ties to someone inside the CIA—a contact who helped him maintain a high level of believability for his stories.
Like Ludlum, the film’s director has delved into the shadowy world of espionage. In 1987, Greengrass coauthored—with Peter Wright, the agency’s former assistant director—a personal account of a former MI5 secret-service operative. The British government’s attempts to ban “Spycatcher—The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer” ensured its exposure and ultimate status as an international bestseller. Greengrass’ glimpse into the actual workings of the spy game gave him insight few other directors could have for Bourne’s story.
In earlier chapters, the assassin learned a limited amount about who he was, predominantly through an unusual set of instinctual skills—from how to silently kill a target in public to outsmarting anyone who crosses his path. But finding and losing his only love robbed him of the desire to use these tools. “Marie represented Bourne’s humanity,” says Damon. “He’s got a very dark past, and he’s done horrible things and he knows it. Marie helped him to understand some of what he did and what it means to be human. With her gone, he doesn’t have anything to lose.”
Bourne thought his past life was finished when a bullet killed rogue CIA agent Ward Abbott (Brian Cox) at the end of Supremacy. “Treadstone represents this group he never wants to have any contact with again,” Damon says. “He gave them an ultimatum at the end of Identity: He’ll come back with everything he’s got if he feels them behind him.”
But the need for global surveillance and the neutralization of threats to national interests has escalated in the minds of key CIA players, and in place of the Treadstone project has come Blackbriar. “They learned from their mistakes of agents having mental breakdowns, and they’ve upgraded training and behavior modification,” explains Damon.
Not only would high-tech surveillance and stunning action mark their return in the third of the series, but Greengrass was adamant that this episode would push the envelope in travel. Indeed, no Bourne film would be complete without a jarring race across the globe that takes moviegoers with Bourne to new locales—from London to Madrid and Tangier, from Paris to Moscow and New York City. “I wanted a contemporary landscape, and I liked the idea of uniting London, Madrid and New York,” offers Greengrass. “There are bits in Moscow and a big piece in Tangier. All Bourne films are not only quests, they’re journeys.”
Damon committed and key players back in producing and directorial capacities, it was time to cast the rest of the company players.
Who Am I? Casting Spies and Traitors
The chain of command has shifted, but the activities of Treadstone initiatives upgraded (into Blackbriar) for a post-9/11 environment have become more covert and sophisticated in The Bourne Ultimatum. Of the players, Greengrass notes: “There isn’t one bad guy—there’s one bad system. You have this split between the hero who is moving to the light and a system that is corrupted.”
The production sees the return of two acclaimed actresses who proved crucial to the series. Joan Allen plays spy hunter Pamela Landy, a CIA operative and internal investigator who developed sympathy for Bourne as she faced off against the vicious Abbott in the second film. Also returning to the production is series’ favorite Julia Stiles as Nicolette “Nicky” Parsons, now stationed in Madrid when Bourne enters the city.
When it came to Allen, fans were not the only ones eager for her return. “Joan brings a cool, cerebral intelligence to Pamela Landy,” commends Greengrass. “You feel her watchfulness; she anchors the CIA side of the story.”
In Ultimatum, Landy is brought into the fold to help Noah Vosen (played by Oscar-nominated actor David Strathairn)—the complicated new head of the covert wing of the CIA—track down the re-emerging Bourne. Her sense of what Vosen’s group is up to with Blackbriar does not sit well with the by-the-book career CIA operative.
Allen explains: “She is brought back to help search for Bourne, because she is, in some ways, an expert on him. He’s a mystery to her, and she has compassion for him, but wants to solve the mystery of what happened to him. It is a world of spying, lying and secrets, but Pamela has a strong sense of ethical responsibility within that framework.”
Landy’s unrelenting pursuit for the truth about Treadstone—and scorching tête-àtêtes with Vosen—adds a crucial dimension to the Bourne story. “She finds herself, if not defending Bourne, at least willing to offer him an opportunity to explain himself,” says producer Crowley. “She is willing to give him his day in court, whereas Vosen wants to terminate him at all costs. When Landy and Vosen bristle against each other, it’s great to watch.”
The arc of Nicky, first introduced in Identity, has been a complex through line in the series. “Nicky didn’t really know what she was doing in Identity,” comments Stiles. “And now she’s at another crossroads. She knows that, with Blackbriar, the situation has gotten worse, and she doesn’t want to be involved anymore. She’s between a rock and a hard place because she wants to stay alive, but can’t get out because she has too much information.”
“There is a great resolution to her character,” adds Damon, “when you realize her history with Bourne. It’s two young people again, and they’re on the run. They end up in many of the same situations Bourne and Marie were in, but it’s clear that there can never be anything more between them because of decisions they made in their lives.”
David Strathairn was approached to play Vosen, who operates the umbrella blackops program of Blackbriar. Crowley, who first worked with Strathairn on L.A. Confidential, notes that the filmmakers were interested in Strathairn because his “strength comes from his softness. There’s a depth of intelligence that he brings to whatever he’s doing.”
Strathairn was eager to become part of the Bourne players. Of his agency, he explains, “Blackbriar is an operation whose primary responsibility is to gather information and take action against a previous threat. Vosen is part of—and maybe even responsible for—this operation formed to perpetuate what Treadstone put in motion.”
Acclaimed acting veteran Scott Glenn was selected to play CIA director Ezra Kramer. “Scott Glenn’s character is the new person at the CIA and now everything happens on his watch,” notes producer Paul Sandberg. “You need an actor of extremely high caliber to pull off the commanding presence and underlying ambiguity that defines a character like that. Scott was ideal for the role.”
In the tradition of Bourne villains that have included Clive Owen as The Professor in Identity and Karl Urban as Kirill in Supremacy, Venezuelan-born actor Edgar Ramirez joins the cast as Paz, one of the next generation of Blackbriar killers. “We were looking for someone who you felt could blend into whatever Third World environment he was required to work in,” recalls Crowley.
Known as one of “the assets” in the agency, Paz possesses skills on par with Bourne and quickly finds himself in two pivotal cat-and-mouse games with the rogue agent. “There is a great scene in the first movie in which Bourne comes face-to-face with The Professor,” notes Greengrass. “Bourne has shot him and the Professor looks up and says, ‘See what they make you give.’ That defines the relationship with these guys. By the time you get to the third movie, Bourne is the old gunslinger. Paz is the new blood, and that dynamic courses through the movie.”
The international ensemble includes Paddy Considine as British reporter Simon Ross, the man who sets the film’s story in motion when he receives leaks from a CIA bureau chief about Bourne, the CIA’s clandestine activities and, most valuably, the name Blackbriar. “He’s fascinated by Bourne and the idea of this rogue agent,” says Considine. “Ross is scratching the surface of something giant, and he discovers more than he should. It’s a fight to stay alive with the information he has.”
Once Bourne reads his name in the pages of Ross’ paper, he attempts to get to Ross before Blackbriar assets, including assassin Paz, can intercept him. “It’s in their best interest to make sure that the story doesn’t get out,” says Damon.
Playing the part of Ross’ source, Neal Daniels—a CIA bureau chief whose conscience has gotten the best of him—is actor Colin Stinton. Daniels ultimately leads Bourne to his associate, Dr. Albert Hirsch (played by acclaimed acting veteran Albert Finney), and images of the two men begin to echo a past lost in the blank spaces of Bourne’s mind…and start to awaken memories of a life before Treadstone.
“Bourne’s motivation is to get to Tangier and find Daniels, so he can interrogate him and find out what he knows about the program,” says Sandberg. “It’s Bourne’s key to his own past.” His journey to learn the truth will take him from London to Madrid to Tangier, where he matches wit and muscle with another Blackbriar assassin, Desh (played by Joey Ansah), in a thrilling rooftop chase across the Medina shopping square. Each step he takes brings him closer to his true identity. “People like to see Bourne deal with the different challenges he faces in the different places that he goes,” notes Marshall. “He has to then solve those challenges by being clever. The audience is never ahead of him, so it creates a lot of suspense and questions.”
His quest ultimately leads him to New York City, the U.S. base for Blackbriar, and home of Daniel’s mysterious associate, Dr. Hirsch. Finney, for his part, relished the opportunity to play a critical role in the Bourne series. “I thought they were great action films, very quick, and kept me on my toes as an audience member,” he says. “What’s extraordinary to me now is that Matt still seems so full of enthusiasm at having new ideas for the scenes.”
In finally finding Dr. Hirsch, the super agent returns home, to the place where David Webb became Jason Bourne. “Dr. Hirsch holds the secrets of Bourne, of his training, of everything that he went through,” explains Damon. “So, he is what Bourne is heading toward for the whole movie, and really, for the whole three films. He’s going back to where he began.”
“Going home is a fundamental theme of this movie,” agrees Greengrass. “Jason Bourne must go back to America.”
Where is Jason Bourne? Shooting Across the Globe
Bringing back much of the same filmmaking team behind the earlier episodes was necessary to help Greengrass achieve the right texture for this film. “It’s an exciting, suspenseful thriller; it’s got great action,” says Greengrass. “But it’s got to have this labyrinthine, conspiratorial plot set in European locations. It requires a lot of handheld camera and hands-on filmmaking to capture that urgent feel. The expression of that is a mixture of the people who’ve come together to make this film.
Returning creative collaborators include Oliver Wood, the cinematographer on all three films, and The Bourne Supremacy’s editor, Christopher Rouse. “Visually there’s a strong continuity between the Bourne movies,” says producer Crowley. “You want the viewers to feel like they have never seen those places in the way you’re presenting to them now—that it’s dangerous wherever you are.
“The camera is there to record and observe,” he continues. “Much of what Bourne is about is paranoia. This floating camera is entirely subjective, which gives you this sense of a limited point of view. There are always people who want to kill Jason Bourne, and there have been since he came off the Italian fishing boat in the first movie.
Production on The Bourne Ultimatum racked up more transportation miles than the first two films combined. Much like Blackbriar operatives, the company had to remain nimble and adaptable, melding easily into different cultures, climates and countries—without drawing too much attention to itself during the course of production.
“Elements of the Ludlum novels I always appreciated were his locations,” comments Marshall. “We’ve carried that into the movies by taking the audience on a journey and showing them what these places are actually like, not just the tourist areas.”
Whether filming at Heathrow or JFK airports, shooting in the Gare du Nord or Waterloo train stations, driving along in Madrid with Nicky or racing through the streets of New York City with Paz in his Touareg, travel was extensive for the production. The more than 250 people working behind the camera required an experienced crew that could secure locations, equipment and local crews as well as work with people in multiple languages—all to allow filming in seven countries and on three continents.
Tangier
Principal photography for The Bourne Ultimatum commenced in the workingclass city of Tangier, Morocco, located on the North African coast at the western entrance of the Straits of Gibraltar—where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean.
While in the second installment of the series, Berlin served as backdrop for post- Cold War intrigue, The Bourne Ultimatum’s locales also resonate with rich history. In the 1940s and ‘50s, Tangier served as an international zone—a meeting place for secret agents and international intrigue. Tangier’s Café de Paris, the location for the scene in which Nicky waits to exchange cell phones with Desh, was a famous haunt of the city’s celebrated expatriate literati.
The walled city know as the Medina comprises a warren of narrow streets lined with thousands of shops and houses stacked one on top of another. “It’s a fascinating area,” Marshall recalls. “It’s very old and therefore had great color for us; it was a great place to have a Bourne chase.”
The company found a number of creative ways to film in the midst of hundreds of onlookers weaving in and out of the various stores. The training of director Greengrass’ cameras was on the daily life of a bustling Arab port city, as he followed Bourne, Nicky and their determined nemesis, Desh, through the winding streets of old Tangier.
The quick-moving, tight action of Bourne darting through the narrow streets of the Medina was creatively captured with the application of multiple, strategically placed cameras. In addition to Greengrass’ signature handheld cams and the use of a crane and dolly tracks, the company outfitted a rig on a cable that slid a camera across the city’s rooftops and closely followed Bourne throughout the heart-stopping chase.
Stunt coordinator and second-unit director Dan Bradley returned from his work on the second film with a new crop of innovative action sequences for Ultimatum. Production designer Peter Wenham collaborated with Bradley and Greengrass to find the perfect setting for the Tangier roof chase of Bourne and operative Desh. “I found a series of three large houses in the Jewish quarter,” Wenham recalls. He had an “idea of Bourne jumping through windows into these buildings and continually running through other people’s lives, and then over balconies to other houses.”
In one spectacular sequence shot in Tangier, Bourne dives 15 feet from a rooftop that is four stories above the narrow street below—straight into the window of an apartment across the way, with the camera making the leap directly behind him. “Dan figured out ways to get stuntmen to run with the camera off the roof,” Damon explains. “When you see the film, you know Bourne’s running across these roofs. It’s just captured perfectly by a smart director with an unbelievable visual style and by these athletes who did things that can humanly be done.”
The chase culminates in brutal hand-to-hand combat between the highly skilled operatives. Having previously trained in boxing and other fighting styles, Damon worked with fight choreographer Jeff Imada—his trainer in Identity and Supremacy—to portray this sequence and the fight in the Waterloo station. “It was more learning it like a dance,” Damon describes, “and to understand balance and how I should move. The challenge is figuring out how to make the performance more believable.”
To allow Damon and the stunt team to jump from tens of roofs and stage an explosion in the middle of the overcrowded Medina, the production had to secure contracts with more than 2,000 businesses. A U.K. crew of more than 200 was joined by a local team from Tangier that helped to navigate the endless logistical decisions that The Bourne Ultimatum brought to Tangier. And that didn’t include the challenges of filming during the Muslim month of prayer, self-reflection, charity and fasting that is Ramadan—occurring in the middle of production and affecting cast and crew hours of availability.
London
The company shot 13 days in Tangier before loading a Soviet-era Russian cargo jet with equipment and heading to London. At the home base of London’s Pinewood Studios, the production re-created the interiors of locations in New York, Paris, Madrid, Tangier and Berlin (used to double for Moscow), under the guidance of production designer Wenham. The Hub, the headquarters of the government-funded CRI (Controlled Resources International), became the nerve center of the Vosen/Landy operation, where the action sequences swirl on monitors. “It’s where they manage Blackbriar agents,” explains Wenham. “The surveillance screens have footage of various locations we filmed around the world. Some screens ran real data.”
It required two months of intensive meetings with director Greengrass and surveillance experts to design the film’s largest, most complex set. Wenham notes, “The story globe-trots from the listening post of CRI, and a lot of consideration went into the CRI hub.” Labyrinths of corridors were created so Greengrass and cinematographer Wood could walk through with handheld cameras and capture events in the inner core of the windowless building, where all the “nasty stuff” occurs.
Wenham’s team re-created CRI to match the final scenes from Supremacy. From functioning equipment—computers that called up data required by the actor running them and monitors wired with various location footage—everything was exact, down to the window view of the New York City skyline. The trans-lights (large, high-resolution photographic images) outside the set were previously shot in Manhattan. “Each room has been dressed and built to replicate a New York environment,” notes Wenham. “Every detail—wall sockets, equipment, dressing, graphics—is American.”
From the home base of Pinewood, the production shot within and around London on streets, in office buildings, hotels and in an underground station. Train stations make several appearances throughout The Bourne Ultimatum. From Bourne’s arrival in Paris at the Gare du Nord to his entrance in Madrid at Atocha—the Spanish station that had only three years earlier been the site of a bombing that killed almost 200 people—stations dot the film. But it is Waterloo Station in London that receives a starring role.
In the thriller’s most complicated sequence, Bourne tries to direct the increasingly panicked journalist Simon Ross to safety before CRI operatives can dispose of him. It is also a sophisticated cat-and-mouse chase, with Blackbriar operative Paz sent to take out the target. For these scenes, legendary armorer Simon Atherton (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Black Hawk Down, Saving Private Ryan) provided actor Edgar Ramirez with Paz’s specialty instrument. “He had to have a weapon that would allow him to take out a subject at 50 meters,” comments Atherton. “So we picked a small assault rifle with a silencer fitted onto the end that operates on a single shot, and we used it with blank ammunition.”
One of the five main-line train stations in London, Waterloo has a stunning 380,000 people traveling through daily. It took five months of negotiations to secure the handful of days the company shot at this central station. The enormous challenge would make Bourne’s world that much more believable. “Anywhere you film where business goes on as usual you have to work around the crowds and commuters,” says Marshall, “Certainly, Waterloo was no different.”
With British transport police, a film security force of 20, and hundreds of CCTV cameras watching the cast and crew’s movements, it felt as if Bourne really was on the loose. Fortunately, Greengrass and company were able to take feeds from the cameras to lend even more credibility to the scenes. Coupled with shots selected from the disused track and platform Charing Cross, it was almost time for Bourne to leave town.
Next, it was off to Paris. Greengrass, Damon and crew shot on the Eurostar as the company made the trip from London through the Chunnel—the 50.45 km (31.35 mile) long rail tunnel that runs beneath the English Channel to link London to Paris. They traveled with minimal equipment and a bare-bones crew squeezed into the train’s last two cars. “We tried to use all the facilities and all of our time to the greatest efficiency,” remarks Marshall. “We had the camera on the train, and we did a scene on it. And then we did the same returning to London.”
Paris, Madrid and Berlin
In Paris, production set down to capture the scenes in which Bourne lands at the Gare du Nord—where he prepares for his difficult meeting with Marie’s brother, Martin Kreutz, to inform him of her death.
Chasing down leads to find the only real link he has ever had with his past—agency bureau chief Neal Daniels—takes Bourne to Madrid, a city of more than three million and the seat of the Spanish court for nearly five centuries. Among the narrow streets and grand plazas, cafes and residences, production lensed Bourne’s search for Daniels’ safe house, and the action that ensues.
In addition to shooting in Madrid’s Atocha train station, the company shot the exterior of Daniels’ office—where Bourne confronts CRI agents and runs into Nicky for the first time since he held her hostage in Supremacy—in the center of the Spanish city on the Calle de la Virgen de los Peligros. Additionally, they lensed a meeting between journalist Simon Ross and Neal Daniels in the Plaza Santa Cruz, adjacent to the city’s grand Plaza Mayor. The intimate scene in which Bourne questions Nicky about his past unfolds at a truck-stop cafe, shot on the A-30 road southwest of Madrid. Finally, Berlin stood in for Moscow, and allowed the filmmakers the continuity needed after the final scene in Supremacy. Locations include the Platz der Vereinten Nationen and the Bahnhof Lichtenberg.
New York City Photography and Stunts
As a location for the conclusion to the path Bourne has taken in this episode, New York City loomed large for the final locale for The Bourne Ultimatum. “One of the reasons we came to New York is because we needed to bring Jason Bourne home,” says producer Crowley. “I think there’s no better city to be able to say ‘He’s in America.’”
Shooting in the complicated, busy metropolis of Manhattan presented a number of challenges to the company. Without the cranes, dolly tracks and lights that usually accompany film productions, the team fortunately drew less attention to itself. Director Greengrass’ intimate shooting style meant the actors were often on the street with commuters headed to work or returning home—sometimes unaware of a major motion picture being shot in their midst.
The opposite was true of the second unit, which shot the car chase on New York City streets, using vehicles modified for the fast-moving film sequences. The Bourne Ultimatum’s final, epic car chase—among Bourne, Paz and scores of CRI agents and NYPD officers—starts off in New York’s Port Authority parking lot, careens down Seventh Avenue through the streets of the Big Apple and ends with a cataclysmic crash along a K-Rail on South Street at the Seaport—but not before accumulating mounds of battered steel, broken glass and destroyed cars along the way.
Production was able to shut down Seventh Avenue to accomplish part of the chase. “When do you shut down Seventh Avenue?” laughs Damon. “It runs right down the center of the island. It was incredible—the logistics of pulling this off.”
In a warehouse on a closed military facility across the river from Manhattan in Bayonne, New Jersey, the team prepped and modified six Volkswagen Touaregs for Paz, 10 CRI Chryslers and various other civilian and police cars to participate in the climactic sequence. The cars needed to remain safe for the stunt drivers, but they also had to (without crumpling) bore into other cars like a battering ram.
Bradley and his Go Mobile—a high-speed, low center of gravity, chassis replacement stunt driving camera platform fabricated by Go Stunts, Inc.—team rigged several vehicles with various equipment in order to capture as many angles of the chase as possible. Remote-drive vehicles, or RDVs, allowed the actors to appear to be manning the careening cars while a professional stunt driver (atop the car) was actually driving them.
While the final crash sequences were mostly sheltered from public view by an overpass, the scenes on streets were a free car-stunt show for the amassing New York onlookers. On the weekend (the only days the company would be allowed to block traffic on the busy streets of Manhattan), quite a crowd gathered to watch the activities of spies in their midst.
Damon was continually impressed with the inventiveness of this setup. “How is it that Bourne is in the foreground, and we’re with him in the middle of a car accident right off his rear bumper? He’s got to be driving the car! The answer is that Dan invented the Go Mobile, so people who love making movies can just geek out over this and see the level of technical proficiency.”
****
Production wrapped, an exhausted Damon and Greengrass, hundreds of cast and crew and producers finished up their respective roles and anxiously await August 3, 2007, when Bourne finally returns to America. A thoughtful Greengrass concludes of the project that has been the passion of much of the past four years of his life: “These movies are redefining the genre and giving it a more human, realistic feeling. You have that visceral quality allied to a story; it feels like it’s unfolding right in front of you, so you invest in it as if it’s almost a live event. You’ve got a ringside view of Jason Bourne in action. You become an active participant in the film, rather than just sitting back and watching a lot of visual effects and big explosions.” Welcome home, David Webb.
Production notes provided by Universal Pictures.
The Bourne Ultimatum
Starring: Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Paddy Considine, Edgar Ramirez
Directed by: Paul Greengrass
Screenplay by: Tony Gilroy, Tom Stoppard, Scott Burns, Paul Attanasio
Release Date: August 3rd, 2007
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence and intense sequences of action.
Studio: Universal Pictures
Box Office Totals
Domestic: $227,471,070 (51.4%)
Foreign: $215,346,089 (48.6%)
Total: $442,817,159 (Worldwide)