Movie reviews, production notes, and more! - "The Bourne Supremacy"

Movie : The Bourne Supremacy

Notes Provided by Universal Pictures Production Information In 2002, an unexpected hero was born with the release of The Bourne Identity-the big screen version of Robert Ludlum's best-selling novel that had at its center a trained assassin attempting to recover his memory while evading shadowy figures from his past. The edgy and sophisticated espionage thriller featured a towering, against-type performance from MATT DAMON as Jason Bourne, and the film went on to become Universal's highest grossing domestic release of the year and the number one DVD/video rental of 2003. Now, following the smash worldwide success of The Bourne Identity, Universal Pictures brings the second installment of Ludlum's series to the screen with Matt Damon returning as trained assassin Jason Bourne in The Bourne Supremacy. Two years ago, Jason Bourne thought he had walked away from his past. But now, his past is about to return. Bourne and Marie (FRANKA POTENTE) have maintained their anonymous, underground existence at the cost of permanence. Fueled by splintered nightmares and haunted by a past he cannot remember, Bourne moves Marie from city to city, trying to remain one step ahead of the threat implicit in every unexplained stranger's glance, every "wrong number" phone callthat at any second, without any warning, he might get pulled back into the world he hopes he left behind. When an operative appears in the sleepy village that has been their latest home, Bourne and Marie collapse their lives and head out. His past at the door, their only choice is now to run. But once a line is crossed and the stakes in a new global game of cat-and-mouse are raised, the Jason Bourne created by Treadstone-the covert, now dismantled operation that spawned cold-blooded, professional assassins-returns. Two years ago, Bourne walked away from the deadly world that created him with a promise of retaliation should anyone attempt contact. Now that that world has indeed come calling, Bourne intends to keep his word. They should have left him alone. Matt Damon returns as Jason Bourne in The Bourne Supremacy, which re-enters the shadowy world of the expert assassin who continues to find himself plagued by painful flashes of memory from his former life. The Bourne Supremacy continues the story of the reformed killer and picks up the thread of unanswered questions posed in the international hit The Bourne Identity. Returning to the memorable roles they created in The Bourne Identity are Franka Potente as Marie; BRIAN COX, once again as agency operative Ward Abbott; JULIA STILES, portraying Nicky; and GABRIEL MANN as Danny Zorn. Joining the cast of The Bourne Supremacy are TOM GALLOP (A.I. Artificial Intelligence) as Tom Cronin, KARL URBAN (The Lord of the Rings trilogy) as rival assassin Kirill and triple Academy Award® nominee JOAN ALLEN (The Contender, Nixon) as Agent Pamela Landy. Compelling use of exotic worldwide locations and the muscular cinematic edge brought by vanguard director PAUL GREENGRASS (writer/director of the award-winning Bloody Sunday) maintain the aggressive style and fresh, non-traditional perspective established in The Bourne Identity. TONY GILROY (The Bourne Identity) writes the screenplay, based on ROBERT LUDLUM's book of the same name. The Bourne Supremacy is produced by multiple-Oscar®-nominated FRANK MARSHALL (Seabiscuit), PATRICK CROWLEY (The Bourne Identity) and PAUL L. SANDBERG (Picking Up the Pieces). Executive producers are DOUG LIMAN (Swingers), JEFFREY M. WEINER and HENRY MORRISON. Top-notch behind-the-camera talents include director of photography OLIVER WOOD (The Bourne Identity); production designer DOMINIC WATKINS (Bad Boys II); editors CHRISTOPHER ROUSE (Paycheck) and RICHARD PEARSON (The Rundown); costume designer DINAH COLLIN (Bloody Sunday); and composer JOHN POWELL (The Italian Job). ABOUT THE PRODUCTION With the runaway, international success of 2002's The Bourne Identity, the world had been re-introduced to not only the character of trained assassin Jason Bourne (memorialized in Robert Ludlum's best-selling books), but to an anomaly that summer moviegoers crave-a blockbuster with both style and substance. By transplanting Bourne from the Cold War setting of the novels to the Europe of the post-Wall collapse, an intriguing anti-hero was dusted off and brought into the new millennium. "We made an intellectual spy film, a paranoid thriller, but we did it in an unconventional way," remembers producer Frank Marshall. "Putting Matt in the lead was casting against type, and he turned out to be the perfect choice-a non-traditional action hero was born in that film. He's proved so compelling that we wanted to continue his story." Matt Damon remembers, "I was not the first person to come to mind for a project such as The Bourne Identity. I had to overcome that I look young, that I don't necessarily look like a stone cold killer. But by playing against expectation, I felt like it was a real chance to do something different than I'd seen in other action movies. We worked very hard to tie me into as many of the situations and stunts as possible, to give my performance believability." Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Supremacy, the second in his successful series of spy thrillers featuring trained assassin Jason Bourne, was published in 1986. It spent 25 weeks on The New York Times Best-Seller List with eight weeks at #1. Veteran film producers Marshall and Patrick Crowley were committed to the innovative storytelling and unconventional approach which led their first film to global box office success and on to become the number one home video/DVD rental of 2003. The taut suspense and character-driven action of The Bourne Identity were achieved through a variety of elements that they were determined to bring back-to pump new life into the time honored espionage thriller. They needed to keep fresh the take on Robert Ludlum's classic story about an amnesiac trained assassin who is slowly waking to the reality of his past. So Marshall and Crowley worked with screenwriter Tony Gilroy (co-screenwriter of The Bourne Identity) to come up with a story worthy of the journey Jason Bourne embarked on in the first film. Frank Marshall comments, "We did not set out to make a sequel. What worked so well in the first film was that so much of it was unexpected-casting against type, going for something beyond a chase and action movie. So if your goal is to make a sequel to that, you've just defeated yourself because it'll be expected." "One of the things that always impressed us in all the early screenings of Bourne Identity," says producer Patrick Crowley, "is people would say 'Wow, I really appreciate that you made us think, that you didn't tell us what was going on.' And you kind of have to deliver the same goods again, but it has to be better this time." Damon observes, "We held to the idea that the action is always developing the character, that it grows right out of the story. We really wanted to build a story where the action was integrated into the characters and their situations-so that you might be able to believe that these are kind of ordinary people pushed into extraordinary circumstances. It sort of defies the customary action formula, and I feel it's one of the compelling things about Bourne's continuing story." Marshall agrees, "The action is driven by character, and the characters' motivations are driven by realistic events-there's not just action for the sake of action." Having left Jason and Marie finally safe and in a sunny seaside village on the coast of Greece, the filmmakers needed to find a way of starting up the story again. "Quite simply, we needed to find a way to get Jason Bourne back in the fray," says producer Marshall, "but we weren't interested in the standard revenge tale. While that does play a part in it, we were looking for something more." Picking Up the Thread From the outset, the Bourne stories presented certain challenges to the filmmakers. Ludlum's immensely popular books were written against the backdrop of the Cold War, with the looming presence of the infamous international terrorist called Carlos. But as Ludlum's long-time friend and literary agent Henry Morrison explains, "The Cold War, per se, was not the important thing to him. It was what was happening to people, and how multinational companies and governments were beginning to manipulate and restrict people. That was what he was writing about." The success of the fist film is a testament to the durability of Ludlum's enigmatic central character and the ability of the filmmakers to present a new kind of action hero in a fresh type of action movie. The filmmakers had proven that they could successfully take Bourne out of the Cold War and transport him into a 21st century world where black-and-white villains and heroes no longer exist. As with the first film, they borrowed a plot point from Ludlum's story to serve as a springboard, this time for Jason Bourne's return. "There was an incident with Marie in the second book where she gets kidnapped and held as a ransom in order to force him back," Frank Marshall explains the kernels of the second story. "And there was a line in the first film when he threatens to come after them if they ever come near him again." Starting with little more than those two ideas, screenwriter Tony Gilroy took a chance. "We didn't want to do another film if we couldn't do something really cool," Gilroy explains. Actor Matt Damon concurs, "When The Bourne Identity came out I said, 'There is very little chance we will do a second film, just because nobody on the team who made the first wants to make another movie if it can't be as good as, or better than, the first one.'" "We knew we had to do something pretty radical," says Marshall of what was needed to capture the momentum of the first film, "and then Tony came up with this amazing idea that Jason Bourne would go on what amounts to the samurai's journey, this journey of atonement." "In terms of Tony veering away from the plot of the book, it's true," notes producer Paul L. Sandberg. "We kept the character, his initial predicament, the feel of the story-but we had to change the story, Bourne's journey, because so much of the world has changed since the book's publication." If filmmakers were going to make another film with Bourne at the center, everyone had to be convinced it was worthwhile. "I wrote a long letter to Matt," Gilroy recalls, "and explained why we couldn't do the normal things you would do in a movie like this. You can't have a revenge movie because Jason Bourne is an assassin-Jason Bourne killed people and he doesn't start the movie with a clean slate. There's a lot of blood on his hands, so a revenge movie didn't feel right. He wasn't healed yet, all he did was say, 'Wow, I know who I am, I know what I did, and I don't want to do that anymore.' But is that enough? So that was a starting point for Supremacy." For Damon, Gilroy's ideas for the second film evolved naturally from the first. "You see him continue on this journey that he started on when he got pulled out of the sea in the first one. This was the logical direction for him to keep going as he continues trying to reintegrate himself into the human race." With the outline for a compelling story and the script underway, everyone knew that now the key factor in bringing the film together was finding the right director. "Tony told me to look at a movie called Bloody Sunday," recalls producer Frank Marshall. "He said that it had a verisimilitude, a reality to it, that made you feel like you were right in it. We went out and got the movie and thought it was fantastic." Bloody Sunday is British director Paul Greengrass' dynamic recreation of January 30, 1972 in Derry, Northern Ireland, when a peaceful civil rights march ended in bloodshed; the film won numerous awards worldwide, including the Berlin Film Festival's Golden Bear and the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Greengrass had a visual style with an edgy immediacy that was perfect for Bourne. Crowley, who has a background in documentaries, was impressed with Greengrass' film. "I was really knocked out by it. He knew how to create scenes that looked as if they'd been achieved spontaneously and realistically. His sense of the camera as participatory viewer really suited the continuation of Jason's story-his visual style matches with the anti-hero, the gritty very realistic settings, the lack of customary Hollywood story beats in Supremacy." "I liked Bourne Identity," Greengrass recalls, "I went on a date to see it, on the spur of the moment. It was a fresh-looking film, one that really married an independent sort of feel with a mainstream Hollywood sensibility." Producer Sandberg notes, "Paul Greengrass brings a willingness to approach things from a non-standard fashion, which has proved to be key to the Bourne series. He comes in as a European outsider, if you will, and that informs everything he does-from how he lights his shots to how he motivates his actors. He really stepped up to the plate in collaborating with all of the creative participants, discussing his vision with Tony and helping to formulate and reformulate to bring out what he felt was important as a director simultaneously with what Matt felt was important for the character." To the director, who started his career as an investigative journalist and award-winning documentary and feature-film director, the idea of doing something totally different was intriguing. "I was wanting a bit of adventure in life and feeling that I'd done a few films of similar type. Sometimes you need to kind of do something totally different to find out what it's like, totally new actors, totally new technicians-it's good for you and it teaches you something." Greengrass flew to Prague to meet with actor Matt Damon, who was shooting there. "The genius of the franchise, and I do think of it as a genius of a franchise," explains the director, "is Matt Damon playing Jason Bourne. He is an utterly fresh character and that's what Matt brings to it-because everybody knows Matt is basically a good guy in terms of personae. He projects goodness. So then if you create a character who is basically a very dark character, a contract killer, with all the capabilities of a contract killer, and point him toward the light and get Matt Damon to play it, you've got an absolutely compelling character." "Unconsidered" is the word Greengrass uses to describe the quality he wanted to bring to the film; it was what he looked for in every aspect of the filmmaking, particularly in the way the camera was employed. "I think that one of the things that made the first film fresh," he says, "is that it was quite lose with a little bit of handheld in there and it wasn't straightforward, conventional storytelling. I think the story needs to feel like it's unfolding against a clock in a short timeframe and I think you need to feel like Bourne is leading you through this film. "It's the difference between a knowing and an unknowing camera," the director continues. "A knowing camera is telling the story, because it knows where the action is going to be. And I think what's appropriate for this film is that the camera tells the story because it's reacting to what's in front of it. Both are contrivances because the truth is you don't just turn up and react, you need to judge it, but the net effect is to create a visceral urgency, a sense of immediacy." Adds Damon, "Paul Greengrass really understands the character of Jason Bourne, the fact that he's a guy-even though he happens to be a trained assassin-who is swept up in these puzzling circumstances that force him down a certain path. I thought Bloody Sunday was one of the best films in recent years. Paul's ability to capture the classic 'man versus the world' conflict in a cinematically distinctive style is remarkable." Greengrass notes, "I think this film is not so much about a man who's lost his memory, although that is a part of it-but it's more about what happens when you've recovered your memory and realized that you're actually a bad man." Spy Vs. Spy Jason Bourne attempted to walk away from a world that refuses to stay neutral. The forces at work have now pulled him back in and he is once again confronted by a cadre of familiar (as well as new) faces-nearly all of them unwelcome. German actress Franka Potente returns as Marie, the source of benevolence and light that continues to prove key to Bourne's acceptance of his past and his attempts to move beyond it. Observes Potente, "Two years have passed since Jason and Marie ended up on that beach in Greece. While it's clear that Jason isn't totally healed, he is at least incredibly committed to the relationship and the softening influence of Marie. It's very much been a choice on their part. The flashes from the past continue, which cause ripples in their life, but they've chosen to stay putuntil Jason's nightmares actually materialize, and they're forced to run again." Greengrass observes, "Marie is the hope that a new page can be turned in his life, and Franka brings both a strength and a feeling of redemption to this very dark world of Jason's." One of the key players reinforcing that darkness is Ward Abbott, whom the director characterizes as "a bureaucratic controller of dark secrets," embodied by leading character actor Brian Cox. Greengrass says, "Brian brings all of the colors anyone could ask for in a plausible adversary-he can sinuous and he can be bullying; he can be cunning and he can be self-dramatizing; he can be pathetic and frightening and sinister. There's a whole spectrum in-between the poles of black and white that Brian inhabits brilliantly." "Clearly in this new world far removed from the Cold War," supplies Cox, "Abbott is a bit of a dinosaur, an old-school kind of guy. Now, so much of the game is about political use or abuse of intelligence, no longer so much of 'agency-as-independent-entity,' accountable to no one. The operation that spawned Bourne, Treadstone, has been dismantled. Abbott is, in some ways, the lord of a shrinking fiefdom, and truth be told he's not very pleased about that." Bourne isn't the only one brought back into the ever-shifting world of international political intrigue. Nicky, the field agent whose work within Treadstone provided perhaps the only human face to the cold operation, is called in by Abbott-to act as go-between for Bourne and the CIA and, inadvertently, as a sympathizer with Jason-as she was the last one to see Bourne alive. Returning in the role is Julia Stiles. Producer Marshall observes, "It's really been interesting to see how people have matured between the first film and this. Julia was in college when we filmed the first one, and she's really grown and matured an actress. That reflects on the character of Nicky, who's grown up within the agency, and really adds to it. Julia proves to be a great asset to this chapter in our story." "In many ways, I think Nicky was in over her head when we first met her," observes Stiles on her returning character. "But now that she's been pulled back, she realizes that the information she has actually empowers her and puts her on more equal footing with Abbott and the upper echelon. She understands the negative effect that Treadstone had on its operatives as human beings. She sees Bourne as a casualty of this operation. She's torn between carrying out the orders of her bosses, whom she does not trust, and helping Jason, who basically saved her life. It's an interesting predicament that only adds to the 'who's the good guy here?' situation." Clearly not a good guy is the new character of Kirill, a rival assassin whose alliances remain shadowy, due in part to the fact that he is not someone who could be called "verbose." Flipping from the heroic role of Rohan warrior Eomer in The Lord of the Rings trilogy to this cold-blooded killer-for-hire is Karl Urban. "Karl has done a tremendous job at bringing a fully rounded performance to a role that doesn't have many lines," says Greengrass. "He's incredibly precise as an actor, both in his choices and in his physical actions. Kirill called for a lot of challenging stunt driving, and Karl was incredibly accurate. He's taken the character's moments and fully invested in them, making each and every one of them matter." Urban says, "This character, Kirill, doesn't say a hell of a lot, but what he does speaks volumes. I mean, usually you do a film where you work on a project and it's cluttered with dialogue, sometimes too much dialogue, and so it was really lovely to come to work and have it stripped back to the raw essence. This character is sort of a throwback to some of the noir characters, the noir hit men in classic French films, that I really love." Another familiar face back from Bourne's splintered past is Agent Danny Zorn, as embodied by Gabriel Mann. The actor relished the dualities present in a story populated with spies and counter-spies and says, "For me, the most interesting kinds of scripts and roles have two dynamics working at once. If the character you are playing is just exactly what he seems to be, I don't think it's as exciting as if you have some other agenda going on. And whether that's you as the actor playing that, or the film setting up that situation with your character-either way, duality increases the chance for interesting conflict. And since we're dealing with international intelligence, there are ample opportunities for that-double operatives working with double operatives, trying to figure out if there's a mole-there's a lot of 'oh, so that's who he really is' along the way." Producer Marshall adds, "While the character of Zorn is not a pawn, he is, without his knowing it, sucked into a situation where his knowledge is used against him. Gabriel was great in the last film and brings just the right attitude to this." Another new character with plenty of attitude is Pamela Landy, a smart, savvy agent running her own operations who has a "no tolerance" policy with regard to withholding or duplicity-honorable traits in a world rife with both. Triple Oscar® nominee Joan Allen tackles the formidable task of playing a strong woman in power within the hyper-macho world of intelligence. "With the death of Conklin [played by Chris Cooper], there was a hole where a new character needed to be. Pamela's a no-nonsense, intelligent woman who's a pro at her job. She's classy, smart, accomplished-all qualities that Joan Allen embodies. She's a magnificently understated actress who's also very cerebral, which works wonderfully in the part. She's able to convey that feeling of containment, that there are swirling undercurrents just beneath the surface, and that makes her infinitely fascinating to watch," comments Greengrass. "My character," explains Allen, "is basically trying to put together a huge jigsaw puzzle. In doing so, she's trying to listen to her intuitions about Bourne, while at the same time balance the information provided by Abbott, with whom she has an antagonistic relationship-there's definitely a power struggle going on there. All of this uncertainty is visually represented by Paul's direction, his contemporary, edgy visual style. Because of his documentary background, I think he has a good grasp of how the CIA works, and he shows us that through his style. Putting us in that world gives us actors a great setting to flesh out these characters and play the shadows as well as the light." Greengrass' shadowy landscape is populated by an impressive slate of international actors that also features Marton Csokas as Jarda, Karel Roden as Gretkov, Tomas Arana as Martin Marshall, Tom Gallop as Tom Cronin, Tim Griffin as Nevins, Michelle Monaghan as Kim, Ethan Sandler as Kurt and John Bedford Lloyd as Teddy. Marshall adds, "We wanted to balance the old and the new, which is not only reflected in our locations, but also in the cast-some returning, some new. As with the first movie, we're consciously going against the grain, trying to do something that's unexpected. Not only are we casting against type, we're going to places that are against type." Setting Bourne's World Even while filmmakers were embroiled in refining the script and filling the roles, one element was always at the forefront of their pre-production schedules-choosing and preparing for the heavy location work that had become a signature element of the story of Jason Bourne. Thus far, Bourne's sojourn had taken him to Paris, Zurich and Italy-but even while visiting such cinematic settings, filmmakers had always been committed to showing the less "showy" side of some of the world's most famous cities. They tried to steer clear of landmarks and clichés and were determined to bring the same gritty realism to the new locations utilized in The Bourne Supremacy. "You want to go places and treat them like they're your environment," explains writer Tony Gilroy, who has spent a lot of time in Europe, "so it's not like we are in India, here's the Taj Mahal. Everything is street level, everything is very familiar." As producer Frank Marshall points out, there was also an opportunity to pay a small homage to the Cold War settings of Ludlum's books. "We had the opportunity to root the film in a place that was literally at the center of the Cold War. It's the spy city, the center of Europe, and it's now incredibly vital, exciting, different and visual." Berlin was to be the setting of a large part of Supremacy, serving both as itself and for some of the Moscow locales. Crowley elaborates, "Berlin was sort of our frontier in the Cold War, it was our outpost, and there was Moscow, where everything was being generated. So they seemed like places that already had built into them values that made them exciting and dangerous and unpredictable." Berlin and Moscow provided a different visual palette for the second story. "The first was shot in Paris, which is quite enclosed," says director Greengrass. "I think there's an interesting journey in this film from the heat and color of India through the kind of monochrome of a Moscow winter. I think this is a lonelier and in some ways much more dangerous mission for Bourne-it's actually an interior journey for the character. He's going through large expanses of Europe while trying to come to terms with his past actions, atone for them. Berlin's a sort of windy city full of open spaces. And then you go east across the plain to Moscow and it seems to make Bourne even more isolated." Crowley reinforces the idea of the exterior journey mirroring the interior one and adds, "Taking a cue from Tony, we decided that a progression of the character would be actualized by the progression of the locations-from lush, tropical and warm to more progressively cool, steely, blue, then finally to graysfrom saturated color to nearly black-and-white." Since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the subsequent reunification of east and west, Berlin has been re-established as a vibrant European center. With its mix of old and new, east and west, it proved to be an ideal location for Bourne Supremacy. The production was centered at the historic Babelsberg Studios where Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel were made. The company filmed all over Berlin and surrounding environs, with Berlin's former eastern sector providing a perfect double for Moscow's streets. Filmmakers exploited the collision of past, present and future on display in the Mitte (literally "middle" or "center") of former East Berlin, shooting Bourne's daring escape on the Friedrichstrasse Bridge over the river Spree, as well as Nicky's capture in the East Berlin icon of Alexanderplatz. Moving further east into Friedrichshain, the company brought an early snow to Karl Marx Allee. In what was the west, the company shot the Brecker Hotel on Berlin's famed "Kudamm" or Kurfürstendamm, the city's posh shopping district. Just outside of Berlin, Jarda's Munich house of glass was shot in Wannsee and part of the final car chase ripped its way through the city of Potsdam, just west of Berlin. Production also filmed in the city's Ostbahnhof (east train station), which would also stand in for Moscow. Scenes were shot in two of Berlin's four airports, Tegel (the meeting of Kirill and Gretkov) and Templehof (members of the CIA boarding and de-planing.). For the scenes where Bourne first enters "the grid" in Naples, interiors were shot in the famed Messe Berlin, a towering example of Nazi architecture, which would service as the Naples customs house. (A small crew was dispatched on a weekend jaunt to capture exterior shots of Naples harbor.) Actual principal photography in Moscow took place on various major streets (where additional shots in the car chase sequence were executed) and in a housing project on the outskirts of the city-all of which exploited filmmakers' plans to eschew any instantly recognizable tourist spot or location. "Berlin has been a fantastic place to shoot," says Greengrass. "It's very contemporary, very unfussy, unpretentious, unforced, fresh." Shot in reverse order of the story's locations, the company went from Moscow to Berlin and finally to the setting of the film's opening scenes in Goa, India. "I had wanted to go there in the early '70s," says Marhsall. "It was one of those places on your radar in the late '60s and early '70s. Tony did a little research and found that a lot of Europeans were still coming there. To shoot for two weeks in India took us about six months of preparation-and it was well worth it." Goa rests on India's southwestern coast. A popular destination for an eclectic group of travelers, its long sandy beaches and swaying coconut palms have been attracting hippies, the old and the young, a mix of spiritual travelers and tourists for years. Production made their first headquarters at Sinquerim Beach in Northern Goa and over several days, they shot in and around the capital city of Panjim, twisting through the narrow streets in Bourne's jeep, with Kirill in pursuit (and camera in tow). A short distance from the beach hotel, the company surprised local residents by jettisoning Bourne and Marie's jeep over a narrow bridge into the murky river below. For the final leg of the production, the company moved south to Canacona, from which they traveled to the famed Palolem Beach to shoot Bourne and Marie's oceanside hideaway and the cafe where Bourne picks Marie up to flee; more of the car chase was also filmed inland on the seemingly endless Goan red dirt roads. "Of the places in the world where you could go and hide," says Crowley, "it just seemed to be a place where you could blend in. We talked about China, we talked about other places, but one of the cool things about Goa was there are a lot of young tourists, which makes it perfect for Jason and Marie-they don't stick out." There are, of course, some challenges to shooting in India. Far from Bombay, the heart of India's massive film industry known as Bollywood, Goa is a sleepy region with thatched huts on bamboo stilts and red dirt roads. The set was graced daily with some unusual bystanders, including oxen, wild dogs and pigs-which sometimes proved to be a challenge above and beyond the ones inherent in deep location filming. As second unit director and veteran stunt coordinator Dan Bradley recalls, "It was the first time in my career we actually had a herd of oxen break through the lockup. We had to stop shooting and wait for them to walk across a pretty long bridge. There was a guy with a stick walking behind themapparently he can get them to go but he's not really good at getting them to stop. So as they walked past the police we just thought, 'Well, you can't stop oxen.'" A Wild Ride Filmmakers also did not shy away from bringing some of the same breathless action that made the first Bourne such a wild ride into this story continuation. Second unit director/stunt coordinator Dan Bradley was brought in to helm, among other things, the challenging cross-continental duel-to-the-death chase sequence between Bourne and Kirill. "Dan Bradley, our second unit director, is also head of our incredible stunt team responsible for a lot of the great action," says Matt Damon. The actor notes that the culmination of one chase sequence is his jumping off of Friedrichstrasse Bridge and adds, "The joke I always made was that when you're young, your mother always said, 'If so-and-so told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?' And you would say, 'No.' But Dan is actually the one person I would jump off a bridge forand I did." In order to prepare the actors for the slate of Bourne action, Bradley organized an on-set training school outside of Berlin, where they could hone their driving and other key "action star" skills. Keeping in tone with the filmmakers' overall aim of verisimilitude (in everything from camera work to location choices), the action sequences needed to be organic to the extraordinary situations these ordinary people find themselves in. "Dan's stuff isn't 'stunty,' it feels realistic," comments Frank Marshall, particularly pointing to Bradley's work in the car crash sequence featured in the film Adaptation. "You watch his stuff and you say, 'Wow, that's what it would really feel like if a truck hit your car from the side.'" In addition to Bradley's detail-oriented supervision, one of the keys to bringing such reality to the stunt work in Bourne was the utilization of the Go Mobile-a high-speed, low center of gravity, chassis replacement stunt driving camera platform fabricated by Go Stunts, Inc. The Go Mobile's modular bay can accommodate everything from cars and trucks to airplanes and even horse buggies; the bay's height, width and length are fully adjustable, providing a match in height to the actual vehicle(s) in motion-a distinct advantage over the older method of executing tracking shots or talent in a car chase scenario, where low speeds and the raised perspective provided by the process trailer created problems when cutting in high speed, actual stunt vehicle footage. The self-propelled Go Mobile is piloted by a stunt driver from a moveable cockpit, allowing a myriad of camera placement around the car/truck, filming the "driver" (actor) from countless angles. The footage shot captures the very realistic forces exerted on the actor inside a vehicle traveling at high speeds while executing quick turns, fast accelerations and sudden stops-the car appears to be driven in a breathless, reckless fashion, when in fact, it is always within the expert control of the externally mounted stunt driver. "It really creates a visceral experience," adds Marshall. So much so, in fact, that Damon claims he "blew the first two takes, because I was having such a blast that I was smiling and yelling the whole time." The actor adds, "When I say that I've done some of my own stunts in this film-like some of the underwater work-they're really not stunts. Dan and the team have got everything planned, down to the last detail, it's all incredibly safe. I'm wearing so many guide wires that it's more like an amusement park ride." Bradley is quick to counter and says, "Matt's been really amazing on this shoot. There was a lot of underwater work, jumps and driving. We literally spent the first day with him saying, 'I want you to learn how to feel the car starting to slide and starting to change its weight.' And he just did that for the first few hours and by the end of the day he was driving like a stunt guy, doing 360° turns and spins. The underwater work and the falls were challenging for anyone, and he was more than willing to get the shot-that's a testament to the professionalism and the courage that Matt has as a human being and as an actor." In addition to months of personal and combat training, Damon, Urban and others received special firearm instruction in order more fully play their roles as trained assassins and agents. Bourne's reticence to re-enter the world of Treadstone and be a killer-for-hire-thanks in great part to his new life with Marie-is challenged when Kirill begins pursuit of Bourne. "When he does pick up a gun, which for him is kind of a last resort, it needs to look like an extension of his arm," Damon comments, "like he has done this for thousands of hours of his life. I trained with a S.W.A.T. expert in Los Angeles, shooting off round after round on a firing range." Training continued in Berlin, and Karl Urban explains, "I had to handle several firearms, including handguns like the .38 Special and a 9mm Beretta, and a .308 rifle. My weapons expert had me so well trained that those became integral tools for my character. Though it doesn't sound like me, I actually got to the point where I enjoyed my work on the firing range." Producer Crowley sums up the filmmakers' dictum with regard to the action: "We, Dan and his team have done everything to avoid any of the established clichés of how action should be portrayed or how it should be captured on film." # # # "The biggest difference between the first film and this one," summarizes Frank Marshall, "is that the first one found Jason running from something. In this film, he has a goal. He's not just getting away from something, he has a purpose and a destination." Director Greengrass closes, "The continuation of Bourne's story finds him recognizing some things about himself-he knows he's a contract killer that has done some bad things. So it's now really about how he chooses to deal with this information and the consequences of his actions. In dealing with his past, essentially two choices open up for himrevenge or atonement. He really starts his journey out of revenge, but he quickly realizes that the only way for him to survive is to atone-it's a powerful choice and an intriguing quest." Universal Pictures Presents A Kennedy/Marshall Production In Association with Ludlum Entertainment: Matt Damon in The Bourne Supremacy, starring Franka Potente, Brian Cox, Julia Stiles, Karl Urban, Gabriel Mann and Joan Allen. The music is by John Powell. The costume designer is Dinah Collin. The editors are Christopher Rouse and Richard Pearson. The production designer is Dominic Watkins; the director of photography is Oliver Wood. The executive producers are Doug Liman, Jeffrey M. Weiner and Henry Morrison. The Bourne Supremacy is based on the novel by Robert Ludlum, and is produced by Frank Marshall, Patrick Crowley and Paul L. Sandberg. The screenplay is by Tony Gilroy. The film is directed by Paul Greengrass. ©2004 Universal Studios. www.thebournesupremacy.com ABOUT THE CAST Matt Damon (Jason Bourne) is one of Hollywood's most sought-after talents. Audiences will soon see Damon starring again as Jason Bourne in The Bourne Supremacy, the second installment in the series from Universal Pictures, following The Bourne Identity. The film opens nationwide July 23, 2004. Later this year Damon will re-team with George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts for director Steven Soderbergh in Ocean's Twelve, the follow-up to the highly successful Ocean's Eleven. The film is scheduled for release from Warner Bros. in December 2004. Next year Damon will star with Heath Ledger in The Brothers Grimm for director Terry Gilliam and Dimension Films. The talented and versatile actor will also star in the geopolitical thriller Syriana for director Stephen Gaghan. The film, which will be produced by Section Eight Films for Warner Bros., will start filming this fall. Last year Damon starred in Gerry, with Casey Affleck for director Gus Van Sant; and opposite Greg Kinnear in the Farrelly brothers' comedy Stuck On You. In 2000, audiences saw Damon star in The Legend of Bagger Vance, for director Robert Redford, and in the film version of the Cormac McCarthy book All the Pretty Horses, for director Billy Bob Thornton. In 1999, Damon starred in Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor. That same year he rejoined Chasing Amy director Kevin Smith and pal Ben Affleck in Dogma, a film about a pair of outcast angels. In 1998, he won an Academy Award® for Best Original Screenplay with longtime friend Ben Affleck for the critically-acclaimed drama Good Will Hunting, a coming-of-age story about a young mathematical genius who, due to his upbringing in inner-city Boston, can't live up to his potential. Damon also earned an Academy Award® nomination for Best Actor for his work in the title role. In addition, both he and Affleck received a Golden Globe for their screenplay, and Damon also garnered a Golden Globe nomination for his performance. The film, directed by Gus Van Sant, received seven additional Oscar® nominations, including one for Best Picture and a win for Robin Williams for Best Supporting Actor. In the same year, Damon starred in the title role of the World War II drama Saving Private Ryan, for Academy Award®-winning director Steven Spielberg, and in John Dahl's Rounders, about a reformed gambler who is drawn back into New York's underground poker world to help a recently paroled friend pay off loan sharks. In 1997, Damon made a cameo appearance in Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy. In the same year, he starred as an idealistic young attorney in Francis Ford Coppola's The Rainmaker, based on the best-selling novel by John Grisham. But Matt Damon is no overnight sensation. He first gained the public's eye in 1996, when he gave a vivid performance in Fox's Courage Under Fire, in which he portrayed a guilt-ridden Persian Gulf War soldier tormented by an incident that occurred in the heat of battle. The versatile young actor made his feature film debut in 1988 in a small role in the critically well-received Mystic Pizza. He went on to play Brian Dennehy's medical school dropout in the TV movie Rising Son (TNT, 1990) and gained further attention when he returned to the big screen as a fascist preppy in School Ties (1992). For director Walter Hill, Damon enjoyed a sizeable supporting role as the green second lieutenant new to the West who narrates Geronimo: An American Legend (1993). In 1995, he appeared in The Good Old Boys, directed by Tommy Lee Jones for TNT. Set in turn of the century Texas, Damon portrayed a forward thinking and mechanically inclined young man who leaves his family behind to follow his heart and pursue his passion for automobiles. In 1998, Damon and Affleck partnered with Good Will Hunting associate producer and longtime friend Chris Moore to form Pearl Street Productions, now known as LivePlanet. This unique company created integrated media, a new kind of entertainment experience that combines traditional media, new media and the physical world. LivePlanet created and oversees Project Greenlight, where filmmaking hopefuls submitted their original scripts to Affleck, Damon and Moore via an Internet competition. A 13-episode documentary series chronicling the making of the Project Greenlight independent feature film debuted on HBO in December 2001 and the film, Stolen Summer, was released in March 2002. The second Project Greenlight film, The Battle of Shaker Heights, opened in select theaters in August 2003 and was featured on HBO in a 13-episode documentary series chronicling the making of the film. The third Project Greenlight is currently underway with the film due for release from Dimension Films in 2005 and Bravo set to chronicle the making of the film in a nine-episode series due to begin airing in January 2005. Damon, who attended Harvard University, first gained acting experience at the American Repertory Theatre, as well as other Boston-based theater venues. Franka Potente (Marie) played roles in several German films before she gained worldwide recognition for her title role in Tom Tykwer's Run Lola Run, which won an Audience Award at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival and the Best Foreign Film award at the Independent Spirit Awards in 2000. She took on the role of Marie Helena Kreutz opposite Matt Damon in Universal's The Bourne Identity in 2002. During that year, Potente starred with Elijah Wood and Mandy Moore in Try Seventeen. Potente was seen in Ted Demme's Blow, opposite Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz, and she also starred in the romantic thriller The Princess and the Warrior, which re-teamed her with writer/director Tykwer in the story of two outlaw lovers. In addition, Potente recently finished shooting Christopher Smith's Creep and has signed on to play a revolutionary in Che, a biopic about Che Guevara, which will team her up with Benicio Del Toro, Benjamin Bratt and Ryan Gosling. Potente, who was born in Münster, Germany, moved to Munich in 1974 to study drama at the Otto Falkenberg School and also studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in New York. Considered "the most prolific Scottish actor of his generation," Emmy and Olivier Award-winning actor Brian Cox (Ward Abbott) is a veteran of more than 40 films and various stage and television performances. Most recently, in addition to filming Wolfgang Peterson's Troy in which he starred as Agamemnon, he also completed filming The Ringer, produced by the Farrelly brothers. In 2003, he received rave reviews for his portrayal of non-mutant general William Stryker in X2. Also in that year, Cox received his second SAG Award nomination as part of the ensemble cast of Spike Jonze's Adaptation, in which he has a scene-stealing cameo as screenwriting guru Robert McKee. In 2002, Cox was featured in seven films, which grossed an impressive $347 million at the box office. His memorable performances include 25th Hour, The Ring, The Bourne Identity and The Rookie. His other film work includes The Affair of the Necklace, The Minus Man, For the Love of the Game, Rushmore, The Corrupter, The Boxer, The Long Kiss Goodnight, the Academy Award®-winning Braveheart, as well as Academy Award® nominee Rob Roy, and Hidden Agenda, which won a special jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Additionally, Cox originated the celluloid Hannibal Lecter in Michael Mann's cult classic Manhunter, based on the Thomas Harris novel Red Dragon. Cox's masterful portrayal of Big John in the critically lauded independent LIE (which was an official selection at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival and was distributed in 2001 by Lot 47) earned an AFI Award Nomination, an Independent Spirit Award Nomination, a Golden Satellite Award and a Boston Film Critics Award for Best Actor. An accomplished veteran of the London stage, Cox has two Olivier Awards for Best Actor to his credit for his performances in Titus Andronicus at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Swan Theatre and Rat in the Skull for the Royal Court in London. Recent New York theater credits include Art on Broadway and St. Nicholas at Off Broadway's Primary Stages, for which he earned a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Actor and nominations by the Drama Desk and the Outer Critic's Circle. Other theater credits include Conor McPherson's Dublin Carol at the Royal Court, St. Nicholas at the Bush Theatre in London and the Matrix Theater in Los Angeles, King Lear and Richard III at the National Theatre in London, and Skylight at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. For his portrayal of Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering in the TNT original film Nuremberg, Cox won the 2001 Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television. Also for this performance he received SAG and Golden Globe Award nominations. His hilarious guest-starring role as Harry Moon on NBC's hit television series Frasier earned him his second Emmy nomination in 2002. Cox made his television directorial debut for the hit HBO prison drama Oz. He is the author of two books, Salem to Moscow: An Actor's Odyssey and The Lear Diaries. Called "one of the most fearless and talented actresses in Hollywood" by the Los Angeles Times, Julia Stiles (Nicky) has exhibited a rare sophistication in the characters she plays. Stiles is currently returning from London where she made her West End debut to rave notices in a revival of David Mamet's Oleanna opposite Aaron Eckhart at the Garrick Theatre. Stiles' film work includes most recently The Prince & Me, directed by Martha Coolidge and produced by Mark Amin. Julia stars as a college pre-med student who falls in love with the Prince of Denmark. She also co-starred with Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst and Maggie Gyllenhaal in Mike Newell's Mona Lisa Smile. Stiles' Shakespeare-inspired film credits include Tim Blake Nelson's O, a contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy, Othello; Michael Almereyda's Hamlet, opposite Ethan Hawke; and the acclaimed comedy hit, Ten Things I Hate About You, for which she earned an MTV Movie Award for Best Female Breakthrough Performance in June 2000 and the Chicago Film Critics Award for Most Promising Actress. Stiles earned critical praise starring in Patrick Stettner's independent feature, The Business of Strangers, opposite Stockard Channing. The film premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival. Additional film credits include the megahit Save the Last Dance, for which she was nominated for two MTV Movie Awards, and David Mamet's State & Main, with William H. Macy, Alec Baldwin, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Sarah Jessica Parker (the film won a 2000 National Board of Review Award for Best Ensemble Cast). Stiles also made a lasting impression with her riveting performance in Michael Steinberg's critically acclaimed drama Wicked, which premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and the Prague Film Festival. Other films include Alan J. Pakula's The Devil's Own with Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt; I Love You, I Love You Not with Claire Danes; M. Night Shyamalan's Wide Awake with Rosie O'Donnell; and more recently, the romantic comedy A Guy Thing opposite Jason Lee. On television, Stiles starred in the ambitious NBC mini-series The Sixties, with Jerry O'Connell and Josh Charles. Stiles also starred opposite Ellen Barkin and Oprah Winfrey in the ABC/Harpo Films special presentation Before Women Had Wings. Additionally, her performance as a young unwed mother opposite Isabella Rossellini in an episode of the CBS drama Chicago Hope garnered critical praise. Stiles began her career on the New York stage, appearing in a number of plays at the LA Mama Theater and the Kitchen Theater, including Everyday Newt Burman and Matthew: School of Life. She also starred in Mac Welmann's The Sandalwood Box. Stiles shared the stage with Gloria Reuben and Mary Testa in Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues in New York. In the summer of 2002, Stiles appeared as Viola in the New York Shakespeare Festival's production of Twelfth Night in Central Park; the cast also included Kristen Johnston, Christopher Lloyd and Jimmy Smits. Karl Urban (Kirill) is best known for his dynamic role as Rohan warrior Eomer in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Director/Writer/Producer Peter Jackson cast Urban in The Lord of the Rings after viewing a rough cut of the critically acclaimed indie film The Price of Milk, which garnered Urban a Best Actor nomination at the New Zealand Film Awards. Born in Wellington, New Zealand, Karl first appeared on television as a child. Throughout his school years, he wrote, directed and starred in many film and stage productions. As a young adult, he postponed his university studies to further pursue his acting career, training and working throughout "Australasia" in theatre and film. The actor was most recently seen starring as Lord Vaako opposite Vin Diesel in the science fiction action-adventure The Chronicles of Riddick. Urban's feature film debut was in Heaven, starring Martin Donovan and Richard Schiff. His other film credits include Via Satellite and Ghost Ship, in which he starred opposite Gabriel Byrne and Julianna Margulies. Gabriel Mann (Danny Zorn) has gained recognition for his roles in theater, television and feature films. He now returns to the role of Zorn that he originally created in Universal's The Bourne Identity with Matt Damon. He also starred in Universal's The Life of David Gale, opposite Kevin Spacey, Kate Winslet and Laura Linney; Buffalo Soldiers, with Joaquin Phoenix; and in Stephen Gaghan's Abandoned, opposite Benjamin Bratt and Katie Holmes. He recently completed filming Drum, starring Taye Diggs and Piggy Banks, which was directed by Morgan Freeman. His feature film credits also include Josie and the Pussycats with Rachel Leigh Cook; Mike Tollin's Summer Catch with Freddie Prinze Jr.; and Michael Corrente's Outside Providence. In addition, Mann starred in the critically acclaimed Sundance Film Festival winner High Art; Allison Anders' autobiographical story Things Behind the Sun; How to Make the Cruelest Month; Antonio Tibaldi's Claudine's Return; Alfonso Cuaron's Great Expectations; Parallel Sons; and I Shot Andy Warhol. His next project is starring opposite Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet in Nigel Cole's A Lot Like Love, and then Wim Wender's Don't Come Knocking, opposite Jessica Lange and Sam Shepherd. Theater has also been a fertile training ground for this talented, young actor. Mann has appeared in several prestigious productions including Potato Creek Chair of Death as part of Marathon '97, a festival of one-act plays at the Ensemble Studio Theater; Tomorrowland at the Playwrights Horizons; and The Red Badge of Courage at the Papermill Playhouse. Three-time Oscar® nominee Joan Allen (Agent Pamela Landy) is one of the film world's busiest actresses. She will next be seen starring in the independent film Off the Map, directed by Campbell Scott and co-starring J.K. Simmons and Sam Elliott. She will also be in Yes for writer/director Sally Potter. She most recently wrapped production on The Upside of Anger for writer/director Mike Binder, starring opposite Kevin Costner, and was seen in the Nick Cassavetes-directed The Notebook, starring opposite Gena Rowlands, James Garner and Ryan Gosling. Allen starred in The Contender, opposite Jeff Bridges, Gary Oldman and Christian Slater for director Rod Lurie, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe, a SAG Award, an Independent Spirit Award and an Academy Award® for Best Actress. She earned several critics awards for her role opposite William H. Macy and Jeff Daniels in Pleasantville, and her role opposite John Travolta and Nicolas Cage in the smash hit film Face/Off earned her critical kudos as well as nominations for a Blockbuster, MTV Award and a Saturn Movie Award. Her emotionally devastating role in The Ice Storm, which also starred Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver, earned her several critics awards. In 1996, Allen starred in Oliver Stone's Nixon, for which she received an Academy Award® nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She also won seven critics association awards, including the L.A. Film Critics Association and the National Society of Film Critics Awards. She received her second consecutive Best Supporting Actress Oscar® nomination in 1997 for her role opposite Daniel Day Lewis and Winona Ryder in Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Allen has appeared in numerous other feature films, including Compromising Positions, Peggy Sue Got Married, Manhunter, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, Ethan Frome, Josh and S.A.M., In Country, Searching for Bobby Fisher, Mad Love, It's the Rage and When the Sky Falls. In addition to her career in film, Allen is one of the New York theater world's most honored actresses and winner of every major prize for her work on and off Broadway. She received the Best Actress Tony Award for her performance opposite John Malkovich in Langford Wilson's Burn This and was nominated in the same category for the title role in The Heidi Chronicles. Off-Broadway she starred in The Marriage of Bette & Boo, for which she won the Obie Award, and reprised her Steppenwolf Theater/Joseph Jefferson Award-winning role in And a Nightingale Sang, for which she received the Clarence Derwent, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Theater World Awards. Off-Broadway she also starred in Delores and The Heidi Chronicles. As an original member of Chicago's famed Steppenwolf Theater Company, Allen starred in their production of Burn This, Earthly Possessions, Reckless, A Lesson From Aloes (Joseph Jefferson Award), Balm in Gilead and Of Mice and Men. Rounding out her career, Allen recently received an Emmy nomination for TNT's The Mists of Avalon, in which she starred opposite Anjelica Huston and Julianna Margulies. ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS Paul Greengrass (Director) has worked extensively across British film, television and theatre. Prior to joining The Bourne Supremacy, he wrote and directed the critically lauded, documentary-style feature Bloody Sunday, about the 1972 civil rights march in Northern Ireland which resulted in 13 deaths. Bloody Sunday's awards include the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival 2002, the World Cinema Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival 2002 and Best Director, the British Independent Film Awards 2002. Greengrass' other credits include The Murder Of Stephen Lawrence (Best Single Film, BAFTA 2000, Special Jury Prize, BANFF TV Festival 2000), The Fix, The Theory of Flight (Best Foreign Film, Brussels Film Festival 1999) and Resurrected (Interfilm and OCIC Jury Awards, Berlin Film Festival 1989). Greengrass has also written and directed many documentaries, including the official Live Aid documentary, Food, Trucks and Rock and Roll. He began his career on World in Action, where he won a BAFTA. He was also co-writer with Peter Wright of the controversial bestseller Spycatcher. Tony Gilroy (Screenplay By) has written or co-written several highly successful films, including the original international blockbuster The Bourne Identity, based on Ludlum's novel, as well as three films for director Taylor Hackford: Dolores Claiborne, The Devil's Advocate and the more recent Proof of Life, starring Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan. Gilroy has also written or co-written The Cutting Edge, For Better and For Worse, Extreme Measures, Bait and shared adaptation credit for Armageddon. Gilroy, who was born in Manhattan and raised in upstate New York, is the son of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright/director/screenwriter Frank D. Gilroy (The Subject Was Roses). With an impressive number of landmark films to his credit as a producer, Frank Marshall (Producer) has also excelled as a director, and found the time to devote himself to numerous endeavors in public service and sports. Marshall has more than 50 films under his belt as producer, including Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Poltergeist, Gremlins, The Goonies, The Color Purple, An American Tail, Empire of the Sun, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, The Land Before Time, the Back to the Future trilogy, Cape Fear and The Sixth Sense. His recent film producing credits include three international blockbusters: Marshall served as producer on the award-winning Seasbiscuit, directed by Gary Ross and starring Tobey Maguire, Jeff Bridges and Chris Cooper; he also produced M. Night Shyamalan's Signs, starring Mel Gibson, and executive-produced The Bourne Identity, starring Matt Damon. He also served as executive producer on the Bernie Mac comedy Mr. 3000. He is slated to produce (along with George Lucas) the upcoming Steven Spielberg-directed Indiana Jones 4. The filmmaker has already made several trips to the Academy Awards®, having been nominated in the Best Picture category in 1982 for Raiders of the Lost Ark and again in the same category for The Color Purple with fellow producers Steven Spielberg, Quincy Jones and Kathleen Kennedy. One of his more recent projects, M. Night Shyamalan's 1999 box office smash The Sixth Sense, was nominated for six Academy Awards®, including Best Picture. Last year's Seabiscuit received seven Oscar® nominations, including Best Picture. As a director, Marshall's credits include the summer 1995 hit adventure, Congo, based on Michael Crichton's best-selling novel; the sensitive true-life drama, Alive, from Piers Paul Read's non-fiction book; the thriller Arachnophobia; and an episode of the Emmy Award®-winning HBO miniseries, From the Earth to the Moon. Marshall began his motion picture career as assistant to Peter Bogdanovich on the director's cult classic, Target. He was then asked by Bogdanovich to serve as location manager for The Last Picture Show and What's Up, Doc? before graduating to associate producer on the filmmaker's next five movies, including Paper Moon and Nickelodeon. Marshall was line producer on Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz, the heralded musical documentary on The Band. He then began a two-film association with director Walter Hill, first as associate producer on The Driver, then as executive producer of The Warriors, both of which have also attained a certain cult status among cineastes. Marshall was also line producer of Orson Welles' legendary unfinished film, The Other Side of the Wind, to which he periodically returned from 1971 through 1976. Raiders of the Lost Ark marked the beginning of Marshall's epochal collaboration with Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Kathleen Kennedy. Following the productions of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Poltergeist (which he produced), in 1981 he formed industry powerhouse Amblin Entertainment with Spielberg and Kennedy. During his tenure at Amblin, Marshall also produced such films as Fandango, Young Sherlock Holmes, Innerspace, *batteries not included, Dad, The Money Pit, Noises Off, Always and Hook, as well as his directorial debut, Arachnophobia. Marshall left Amblin in the fall of 1991 to pursue his directing career. Together with Kathleen Kennedy, he formed The Kennedy/Marshall Company under which Alive was the company's first release. In 1995, he directed Congo and produced the highly acclaimed film The Indian in the Cupboard with Kennedy and Jane Startz. In 1997, he directed his episode of From the Earth to the Moon, which centered around the Apollo 11 moon landing. Upcoming directing projects for Marshall include Antarctica for Disney. The Kennedy/Marshall Company's most recent productions include Snow Falling on Cedars, A Map of the World, The Sixth Sense; Olympic Glory, the first official large format film of the Olympic Games; and director Simon Wincer's large format film The Young Black Stallion. Upcoming Kennedy/Marshall projects include The Talisman, based on the novel by Stephen King & Peter Straub, with a screenplay by Ehren Kruger (The Ring); the sequel to the blockbuster franchise Jurassic Park IV; Nicole Kidman starring in Emma's War, based on Deborah Scroggin's book for director Tony Scott; and Johnny Depp starring for director Julian Schnabel in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Marshall continues to find time for his love of music, sports and magic. He has produced several record albums over the years and continues to run in distance races worldwide. Combining his passions for music and running, he, along with America's premiere miler Steve Scott, founded the Rock 'N' Roll Marathon, which debuted in 1998 in San Diego as the largest first-time marathon in history. Marshall is a Vice President of the United States Olympic Committee, a board member of The Los Angeles Sports Council, Co-Chairman of The L.A. Mentoring Partnership and a member of the UCLA Foundation Board of Governors. He is a recipient of the acclaimed American Academy of Achievement Award, the UCLA Alumni Professional Achievement Award and the California Mentor Initiative's Leadership Award. Patrick Crowley (Producer) has worked his way up the production ladder, from assistant director to his current position as one of the industry's most highly valued producers. Crowley returns to the Bourne series, having also produced the highly successful The Bourne Identity. Born in Orange, California, Crowley received a Bachelor's degree in political science from the University of California at Berkeley and a Master's degree in communications from Stanford University. He then became an Adjunct Professor of Communications at Stanford, where he taught film from 1972-75. Afterward, Crowley directed documentaries and ran a video production company in San Francisco. Moving to Los Angeles in 1980, Crowley produced a number of commercials directed by multi-Academy Award®-winner Conrad Hall. He then entered the Directors Guild of America as a first assistant director, working with such filmmakers as Curtis Hanson on Losin' It, Roger Spottiswoode on Under Fire, Barry Levinson on The Natural, Karel Reisz on Sweet Dreams and John Schlesinger on both The Falcon and the Snowman and The Believers. Crowley served as co-producer on True Believer, produced by Walter Parkes (one of his students at Stanford) and Lawrence Lasker. He then worked as unit production manager on Revenge, directed by Tony Scott. Crowley was executive producer of the large-scale science fiction thriller RoboCop 2, Nora Ephron's comedy smash hit Sleepless in Seattle and Edward Zwick's historical romance Legends of the Fall. He also produced RoboCop 3 and executive-produced Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. Crowley became executive vice president, production at New Regency Productions in 1994, where for six years he supervised production and post-production on such films as L.A. Confidential, A Time to Kill, Entrapment, Fight Club, The Devil's Advocate, City of Angels, The Negotiator, Heat, Tin Cup, Cobb, Boys on the Side, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory and many others. He is a partner in the eStudio Network internet company, which provides consolidated purchasing and crucial database information for both studio and independent films. Paul L. Sandberg (Producer) received his Bachelor's degree in economics (in the Honors Program) from UCLA, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and Magna cum laude. He next attended the University of Chicago, simultaneously earning a Juris Doctorate from its law school and an MBA from its graduate school of business. While a student in Chicago, he served on the University's Major Activities Board, producing concerts by a number of musical acts, including The B-52's, King Crimson, The Ramones and U2. Sandberg began his career as an attorney in the Entertainment Department of the Century City office of Loeb & Loeb, working in the areas of motion pictures, music, television and publishing. While there, he specialized in representing actors, directors, writers, producers, studios, production companies and entertainment financiers. Thereafter, he practiced law at the Beverly Hills office of Finley, Kumble, Wagner et al., specializing in entertainment litigation and arbitration. He later joined the Los Angeles office of London-based international law firm Denton Hall Burgin & Warrens, and represented numerous companies and individuals in the area of independent film. Sandberg left the full-time practice of law in order to start up and run Itami Films, the U.S.-based production company of Juzo Itami, the Japanese director best known for the films Tampopo, A Taxing Woman and The Funeral. After Itami Films ceased operations, Sandberg established his own entertainment law practice; began serving as a personal manager to a select number of writers, actors and directors; and undertook efforts to produce film and television projects through his own company, Ostensible Productions. His first production was the feature film Picking Up the Pieces, starring Woody Allen, Sharon Stone and Kiefer Sutherland and directed by Alfonso Arau (Like Water For Chocolate). Joining him on the project were three-time Oscar®-winning cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (The Last Emperor, Apocalypse Now, Reds), and Coen brothers editor Michael R. Miller (Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing). Working with the late author Robert Ludlum, Sandberg successfully packaged and set up the feature film version of his novel The Bourne Identity. The movie, starring Matt Damon and directed by Doug Liman (Swingers, Go), was Universal Pictures' highest-grossing domestic release that year and the number one video rental of 2003. In the time since Ludlum's death, Sandberg has produced The Bourne Identity, starring Matt Damon once again, and directed by Paul Greengrass. He has additionally packaged and set up the feature film version of Ludlum's novel The Sigma Protocol, with Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, King Arthur) directing. Sandberg is also currently at work on a number of other Ludlum-based projects, including a feature film version of the novel The Janson Directive, with Oscar®-winning screenwriter David S. Ward (The Sting, Sleepless in Seattle). Sandberg lives in Los Angeles with his wife (classical archaeologist Shelby Brown) and their two children. Robert Ludlum (Based on the Novel By) was the author of 21 novels, each one a New York Times bestseller. There are more than 210 million of his books in print, and they have been translated into 32 languages. He is the author of The Scarlatti Inheritance, The Chancellor Manuscript and the Jason Bourne series-The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum-among others. Mr. Ludlum passed away in March, 2001. Doug Liman (Executive Producer) has become acknowledged as one of the most vibrant and original young voices in American film with his critically acclaimed features that include Swingers, Go and The Bourne Identity. Liman made a splash with the indie hit Swingers, which he produced and directed. Made on a shoestring budget of $250,000-money he scraped together with the help of his father, the late Iran-Contra investigator Arthur Liman, who also served as counsel to the production. Liman acquired the script from the film's screenwriter, Jon Favreau, and he cast him along with Vince Vaughn, Ron Livingston and Patrick Van Horne to star in the story of the search for love in and around Los Angeles' retro swing bars. Liman's adrenaline-driven next effort, Go, was comprised of three separate but related sections, each focusing on different members of the film's talented ensemble, including Sarah Polley, Katie Holmes, Taye Diggs, William Fichtner, Jane Krakowski, Breckin Meyer and Jay Mohr. Imbued with freshness of vision and execution, Go premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and opened to overwhelming positive notices. Liman also served as director of photography on both Swingers and Go. Following the Sundance premiere of Go, Liman set about securing the rights to The Bourne Identity, a novel he had been passionately pursuing for many years. Liman made his maiden solo flight as a new pilot across the country to visit Robert Ludlum at Ludlum's summer home in Glacier National Park, where Liman's dramatic arrival over the Tetons helped close the deal. Liman brought the project to Universal, arriving with his own screenplay in hand. As the first producer on the film, Liman served as a driving force in the development and greenlighting of the project, securing Matt Damon's and Franka Potente's participation and convincing the studio that the film needed to be shot in Europe. The film opened to critical and popular acclaim and became Universal's highest grossing domestic release of the year, as well as an international blockbuster. While he was directing The Bourne Identity, Liman also helped produce the critically acclaimed Kissing Jessica Stein, directed by Liman's childhood friend Charles Herman-Wurmfeld. Liman was not available to work on the sequel, as he was directing Mr. and Mrs. Smith, starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, which is currently in post-production. In addition, in the course of the last year he also executive-produced the first season of the hit series The O.C., for which he also directed the first episodes. He remains an executive producer on the Bourne franchise. Liman continues to champion cutting edge new filmmakers through his production company, Hypnotic, which created last year's hit Internet sensation, Terry Tate Office Line Backer. His interests outside of filmmaking include working for the LEGAL ACTION CENTER, which provides pro-bono legal work on behalf of people with addictions, HIV and convictions, and with SAFE SPACE, which does work on behalf of homeless teens in New York. He works on the campaigns of New York politicians and supports young New York-based artists by exhibiting their works in his TriBeCa loft. He is also an avid outdoor enthusiast who guides river trips, climbs, mountaineers and is an accomplished pilot. Jeffrey M. Weiner (Executive Producer), CPA, has served as accounting and consultant firm Marcum & Kliegman LLP's Managing Partner since 1990. He joined the firm in 1981, and became a partner in 1983. Under his progressive leadership, the firm has experienced explosive growth, expanding from a one-office firm of 20 employees, to a five-office firm that now ranks in the top 33 firms in the United States, the top 10 in the New York metropolitan area, and the top firm on Long Island. As Managing Partner, Weiner has been instrumental in diversifying the firm's services and capabilities. His myriad of new and highly successful business ventures has produced a significant increase in Marcum & Kliegman LLP's bottom line and confirmed his place as a visionary in the accounting and consulting fields. In addition to his responsibilities as Managing Partner, Weiner manages Marcum & Kliegman LLP's entertainment practice. He is a nationally recognized expert on the subject of personal business management for the entertainment industry, and has lectured at numerous colleges and universities. Weiner is a founding member of The Leading Edge Alliance, a worldwide group of large, independent accounting practices that provides member firms with access to nationally recognized expertise in a wide range of industries and service areas. He is a member of the Board of Directors of The Major Automotive Companies, a publicly-held holding company that trades on the NASDQ (symbol MAJR). He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Long Island Business Development Corporation and is a member of the Editorial Board of The CPA Journal. His professional memberships include the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants. His philanthropic and community involvements include the Variety Pre-Schoolers Workshop. Weiner was most recently elected Vice President of Finance for the Children's Medical Fund of New York. Henry Morrison (Executive Producer) went to work for the Scott Meredith Literary Agency in March of 1957, and was there as a senior agent and vice president until November of 1964. During those years, he worked with and represented such authors as Evan Hunter/Ed McBain, Norman Mailer, P.G. Wodehouse, Paul Anderson, John Farris, Donald Westlake and Lawrence Block. Morrison negotiated hundreds of book contracts in the United States and overseas-and also negotiated with various movie studios and movie producers for the licensing of film and television rights to materials created by the above (and other) authors. He opened Henry Morrison, Inc. in January of 1965, and has over the years represented the likes of Robert Ludlum, David Morrell, Eric Van Lustbader, Dean Koontz, Joe Gores and Samuel R. Delany. Morrison has dealt with all the major publishers in New York City and has (by conservative estimate) successfully negotiated over 2,000 contracts for various clients. Oliver Wood (Director of Photography) is a well-respected and talented cinematographer with well over two decades of experience to his credit. He most recently crafted the distinctive looks for the hits Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed; Freaky Friday, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan; the Martin Lawrence comedy National Security; and Universal's original hit The Bourne Identity. Wood's diverse roster of additional feature film cinematography credits includes the underwater drama U-571, starring Matthew McConaughey; John Woo's Face/Off; Mighty Joe Young; Mr. Holland's Opus; Terminal Velocity; Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit; Rudy; Die Hard 2; Alphabet City; Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey; and many others. His upcoming projects include the motion picture adaptation of the Marvel Comics property The Fantastic Four. Wood's television credits include several seasons of the seminal '80s show Miami Vice. Dominic Watkins (Production Designer) began with a successful art design career creating sets for night clubs, which served as an entrée into music videos. His collaborations with such top recording artists as Christina Aguilera, LL Cool J, Madonna, Janet Jackson, David Bowie, Aerosmith, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Kylie Minogue helped to fashion some of their most distinctive music videos. Segueing into television commercials, Watkins designed the spots for such leading companies as Coca-Cola, XM Radio, Visa, Mercedes Benz, MCI, Nike and Honda, to name a few. He made his feature film production design debut with the thriller Wicked, starring Julia Stiles and Billy Moses. Most recently, his work was seen in director Michael Bay's Bad Boys II, starring Will Smith. Christopher Rouse's (Editor) keen sense of story combined with his ability to cut unique action sequences has made him one of the most sought-after editors around. He worked on the first installment of the Bourne franchise, The Bourne Identity, and most recently edited the John Woo-directed film Paycheck, starring Ben Affleck. He also co-edited The Italian Job and lent his talents as the additional editor on Manito (winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival) and on the IMAX film Olympic Glory. In addition to his work on feature films, he received an Emmy nomination for editing the miniseries Anne Frank: The Whole Story, starring Ben Kingsley. He also edited several episodes of the award-winning From the Earth to the Moon, a miniseries produced by Tom Hanks and Ron Howard. Richard Pearson (Editor) most recently served as editor on the jungle-set action-adventure The Rundown, starring The Rock and Seann William Scott; and on the hit sequel Men in Black II (with editor Steven Weisberg). His other motion picture credits include The Score, Drowning Mona, Bowfinger and Muppets From Space. Pearson received an Emmy nomination for his work on the 1998 mini-series From the Earth to the Moon. He also created the title design for the acclaimed series. Dinah Collin (Costume Designer) has had a long and distinguished career in British television and feature film costuming, beginning with one of her earliest credits on the seminal television series Dr. Who; since then, she has created costumes for everything from period epics to modern-day dramas. Collin also continues her long-term collaboration with filmmaker Paul Greengrass, having previously worked with him on the features Bloody Sunday and The Theory of Flight and the telefeatures The Murder of Stephen Lawrence and The Fix. Her work in television mini-series includes the acclaimed 1995 version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle), which won her an Emmy (Outstanding Individual Achievement in Costume Design for a Miniseries or Special), as well as a BAFTA nomination; and The Sins (starring Pete Postlethwaite). She also costumed the telefeature Portrait of a Marriage, for which she was awarded a BAFTA for Best Costume Design. Collin's additional film credits include the feature Gladiatress and one of the shorts in the collection Ten Minutes Older: The Cello. In 1988, John Powell (Music By) landed a job composing music for commercials and television at London's Air-Edel Music. There, he worked alongside composers Hans Zimmer and Patrick Doyle, where he made his first foray into feature films by assisting Doyle with the score of Into the West and writing cues and working as an electronic music programmer for Zimmer on White Fang. Adhering to one musical regime is not in Powell's nature. Before moving to Los Angeles, he played for more than 15 years with the Fabulisitics, an early '60s London soul band that performed for everyone from Lady Diana to denizens of the local pub. While in Los Angeles, it was Powell's hair-raising score for the Nicholas Cage/John Travolta-starrer Face/Off that put him on the map. He successfully built a heightened state, utilizing industrial sounds, unresolved harmonies and tragic melodies. He then turned to the Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock-starrer Forces of Nature, writing romantic melodies with a quirky comedic sensibility. For Antz, featuring the voices of Woody Allen and Sharon Stone and a plot about an ant colony below Manhattan's Central Park, Powell created a musical mélange of jazz, Latin and classical sounds with a highly imaginative theme. Next came Endurance, developed and co-produced by Terrence Malick; in an almost wordless film, Powell's score serves as dialogue, conveying the central character's joy, dignity and struggle. John has scored a wide variety of films such as: Chicken Run for DreamWorks; the recent action films The Italian Job and The Bourne Identity; the romantic comedy Two Weeks Notice; and the audience favorite Drumline. From action to thrillers to comedies to dramas, he has proven himself to be one of the most talented and original new voices on the film music scene. For the animated film Shrek, Powell impressed audiences and critics alike in creating a sophisticated and intelligent score. He again won the hearts of audiences with the poignant score for I Am Sam. Recently, John reunited with directors John Woo of Face/Off to score the action film Paycheck; and with Charles Stone III of Drumline to create a soulful score for Disney's Mr. 3000. This year, Powell will venture into the world of animation again, with the upcoming Happy Feet for George Miller and Robots for Chris Wedge. Official Web Site: http://www.universalpictures.com Back to main movie page Showing Today at: Click here for other showings