The divisive 2012 action spinoff, The Bourne Legacy, was director Tony Gilroy’s attempt to launch an MCU-esque franchise, the filmmaker has revealed. Speaking with Deadline, Gilroy declared that the “whole goal” of the Jeremy Renner-led spinoff was to create a franchise of different, connected stories set without the world of Bourne. But, they did not “want to take it.”

“Look, man, I tried to give them a Marvel Universe with The Bourne Legacy, and they didn’t want to take it. I mean, honestly, that was the whole goal of that, to open it up … The history of Bourne is one of the most shambolic success stories of all time. That would have been a great Hollywood book if someone had followed it from the very beginning. You’d never get everybody to tell the true story, but it just stumbled toward success all the way through. With Legacy, we really tried to give them, that was my goal, give them a Marvel Universe that they could open up, but there was so much bad blood and other stuff that it just didn’t work for them.”

Teasing what he calls the “shambolic” making of the Bourne movies and the “bad blood” that was left behind, Gilroy clearly had big plans for this world of assassins and espionage. And, instead of an expansive series ala the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the studio instead ended up with a mixed spinoff, followed by a mixed sequel in 2016.

“I mean, what’s the trick? The trick is imagination, ambition, and a real – I know it’s just a cliche- but a real disrupt, you have to disrupt sh*t like crazy. You have to turn it upside down and say, ‘Let’s do the opposite.’ Always looking, in every scene and every moment, ‘What haven’t we done before? What’s new?’ So you gotta be really ambitious and not safe. It’s safety that’s the enemy of expanding things, I think.”

RELATED: Bourne Identity at 20: Why the Film Will Always Be an Action Classic

Will More Bourne Adventures Ever Happen?
Universal Pictures

The huge influence that the Jason Bourne trilogy has had on the action movie genre is easy to see, with the character’s gritty-and-grounded expertise even leading to major changes in the iconic James Bond franchise. While the first three Matt Damon-led movies are considered modern action classics, attempts to expand or even continue the series have been met with seriously mixed results. The latest push for a shared universe came in the television series Treadstone which, once again, was met with average reviews and was unceremoniously canceled after just one season.

So, what’s next for Jason Bourne? Well, Damon has said in the past that he would happily join forces with Jeremy Renner “if they could find a way,” but has also said that he “might be done” with the character.

There are currently no official plans for a sixth Bourne movie, however producer Ben Smith has claimed that a new project is in the works. “I mean we are definitely working on another film,” he said in 2019. “What we’re doing within that? Will there be connected tissue in terms of are we all existing within the same world and universe? Absolutely. The details of that are still under wraps.”