The Bourne Ultimatum scored the biggest August opening weekend U.S. box office take in history, bringing in $70.2 million since last Friday. The film, a sequel to The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy, all of which were based on the series of espionage novels by Robert Ludlum, displaced The Simpsons Movie as leading box-office attraction. The cartoon saga brought in $25.6 million in the United States and Canada.
The film benefited from highly positive reviews, suggesting that a slightly more intellectual approach to action cinema is a very viable strategy.
It would certainly be a welcome development.
The latest entry in the Bourne saga nearly tripled the $27.1 million opening-weekend gross of The Bourne Identity in 2002 and was substantially more than the $52.5 million The Bourne Supremacy grabbed in 2004.
Actor Matt Damon, who plays the eponymous amenesiac espionage agent in the films, is now the most effective audience draw among all actors and actresses, in terms of box-office dollars per dollar of salary.
According to a Forbes magazine analysis, Damon brings in more than twice as much money per dollar of salary as Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise, Reuters reports:
For every dollar "The Bourne Ultimatum" star was paid for his last three roles, the films returned $29 in gross income.
Jennifer Aniston was the top-ranked actress, making No. 5 on the list with a gross income return of $17.
Damon’s first two outings in the Bourne trilogy have so far grossed around $850 million worldwide at the box office and in DVD sales, Forbes said. The latest installment opened last weekend, taking $70.2 million at the U.S. box office.
Sam: My wife and I were able to sneak away last night to see “Ultimatum” and were thoroughly entertained. It’s an excellent movie, certainly one of the best I’ve seen in the genre of “spy thrillers,” due to a great mix of excellent directing, acting, and writing. The ending both resolves many questions while opening up other potential questions and possible plot lines. Since the movie is very much about identity and memory, I think that future (potential) Bourne movies have plenty to work with, especially in terms of characters. Recommended!
I’m looking forward to seeing it, if and when my wife and I can get away for an evening. When I first saw “The Bourne Identity” I wasn’t too taken with it, largely because I had read the book years ago and had a very definite vision of how things should be (yes, Ludlum overwrote nearly everything, but in Jason Bourne he created a fascinating and complex character) . But the second movie impressed me, and a second viewing of the first installment revealed more depth and nuance than I had seen previously. Damon is perfect for the role and I’m happy to see that he and the folks involved in making the movies aren’t simply cranking out mindless sequels, but are infusing intelligence into a genre—the summer action flick—that is usually absent of any sort of artistic merit.