A Bourne Star

The Bourne Legacy
opens August 10th.

Recent years have been good to Jeremy Renner. The twice Oscar nominated actor has put out several quality films as a supporting actor (The Town and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol) or as a lead actor (The Hurt Locker), but Renner has been front-and-center until this week. The summer has already been kind to Renner as his role of Hawkeye in The Avengers, which shattered box office records until The Dark Knight Rises came out. Now he finds himself as the new lead in The Bourne Legacy.

Though audiences met him in the 1995 film National Lampoon's Senior Trip, Renner has plugged away for years until his Oscar nominated role of William James in The Hurt Locker. After that, it was a matter of finding out where he belongs. Renner starred in The Oaks and The Unusuals on TV, but neither stuck around long term. After a second Oscar nomination came for his role of James Coughlin in Ben Affleck's The Town, Renner star began to shine without a constellation to associate it with. After a cameo in Thor as Clint Barton/Hawkeye, it was obvious that he found a home in the Marvel franchise since the only problems are the revolving door as the Hulk. Now, Renner has two franchises he's part of as the new star of the Bourne series. According to IMDb, Renner has four more projects in the works (not including the Avengers sequel which hasn't been announced). 

Renner has already been in a blockbuster this summer when
it played Hawkeye in The Avengers.

Now the new Bourne movie is only a risk for their franchise, not to Renner. Sequels that change the lead role haven't exactly faired well at the box office. The list is actually a long one: Predator 2, Teen Wolf Too, The Next Karate Kid, Hannibal, Terminator Salvation, Speed 2: Cruise Control, Batman and Robin, Robocop 3, The Sum of All Fears... etc. In recent memory, only Harrison Ford replacing Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan worked. The supporting cast is intact for the Bourne series and add on Edward Norton (who also replaced/was replaced as the Hulk)  which doesn't put the burden on Renner. The plot is simple: there was never just one Jason Bourne. If the film succeeds, there's potential for more movies and even a reunion with Matt Damon's Jason Bourne. The series of books continued after The Bourne Ultimatum, but this is loosely based on the book of the same name by Erik Van Lustbader. Therefore, the Jurassic Park III scenario is out. It's not just taking main characters and putting them into situations completely out of place.

Can he transition the series and move it along? That's uncertain, but what is certain is that the days of Renner being in the background are over... well that is unless he wants to.