Move over, Matt Damon: Burt Reynolds almost made ‘The Bourne Identity’ in 1983
Matt Damon would be the first person to tell you that The Bourne Identity might be the most important movie he’s ever made, which is enough to make you wonder how things could have panned out in a timeline where Burt Reynolds got there almost 20 years before him.
Of course, Doug Liman’s 2002 spy thriller wasn’t the first time the title character graced the screen, but there’s a pretty big hypothetical difference between a made-for-television two-parter starring Richard Chamberlain and a feature-length blockbuster headlined by one of the biggest stars of their era.
Damon’s post-Good Will Hunting comedown saw him sliding toward the abyss of irrelevancy, with Titan AE, The Legend of Bagger Vance, and All the Pretty Horses declared dead on arrival, and he knew he needed a hit. He wasn’t convinced The Bourne Identity would be it, but he was willing to take that chance.
His action hero debut reinvigorated him as a draw and a certifiable leading man, leading to a pair of sequels that were even better, and a legacy follow-up that wasn’t especially great. As for Reynolds, had his unmade adaptation of the Robert Ludlum novel made it into production, he could have saved himself from the scrapheap, too.
Without question, 1983 was the turning point of his professional life. Having been offered the part of Garrett Breedlove in James L Brooks’ Terms of Endearment, which won Jack Nicholson an Academy Award for ‘Best Supporting Actor’, Reynolds turned it down to make Stroker Ace instead, which he confessed was the exact moment his A-list tenure came to a screeching halt.
In May of that year, Warner Bros announced that Reynolds would play Jason Bourne in The Bourne Identity, with Oscar-nominated Room at the Top and The Innocents director Jack Clayton at the helm. The filmmaker was confident that the role of an amnesiac secret agent would allow the leading man to explore untapped dramatic avenues, and there was every chance he might be right.
Reynolds may have also fancied his chances of showing the world he could cut the mustard as an ass-kicking spy, too, having knocked back the chance to take over from Sean Connery as James Bond. In the 21st century, Bourne briefly outpaced 007 as cinema’s favourite secret agent, and with Roger Moore’s tenure in its death throes by the early 1980s, it may well have happened two decades ahead of schedule.
On the other hand, Reynolds was notorious for making more shit films than the average superstar, so his abandoned Bourne Identity could have been another disaster waiting to happen. What if it wasn’t, though? Would Damon want to star in a remake of a Burt Reynolds movie? If it had already been a Burt Reynolds movie, would it even be remade at all?
It’s fascinating to think about, and in an alternate universe somewhere, it can’t be ruled out that there’s a timeline where anytime anybody mentions Jason Bourne, the moustachioed Smokey and the Bandit figurehead is the first thing that comes to mind.
