The Bourne Identity is a 2002 American action-thriller film directed by Doug Liman and written by Tony Gilroy and William Blake Herron. Based on Robert Ludlum's 1980 novel of the same name, it is the first installment in the Bourne franchise, and stars Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Chris Cooper, Clive Owen, Brian Cox, and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. In the film, Jason Bourne (Damon) has psychogenic amnesia and is forced to fight to unlock his identity and his mysterious connection to the CIA.
Attempts to develop a feature film adaptation of Ludlum's novel first began in 1981 but stalled after being passed to different distributors, with Warner Bros. producing a television film adaptation in 1988. Liman revived the feature film project in 1996 and worked with Ludlum and David Self on its screenplay after Gilroy initially declined: Gilroy made several changes to the script upon joining, with additional contributions from Herron. After Damon and Potente were cast, principal photography began in October 2000 and lasted until February 2001, with filming taking place in Paris, Prague, Imperia, Rome, Mykonos, and Zürich. Production was troubled: the creators frequently clashed with studio executives over delays, costs, last-minute changes, and unexpected reshoots.
Originally set for release in September 2001, it was theatrically released in the United States on June 14, 2002, by Universal Pictures. The film received positive reviews from critics, with many considering it one of the most influential action films of all time, and grossed $214 million worldwide on a budget of $60 million. It was followed by the sequels The Bourne Supremacy (2004), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), The Bourne Legacy (2012) and Jason Bourne (2016).
Plot
In the Mediterranean Sea, Italian fishermen rescue an American man adrift with two gunshot wounds in his back. Tending to his wounds, they find he has amnesia but shows fluency in several languages. A tiny laser projector found implanted in his hip gives the number of a safe deposit box in Zurich, so he goes to investigate. While there, he discovers he is highly trained in hand-to-hand combat after incapacitating two Zurich police officers in a park.
In the deposit box he finds various currencies, passports, IDs with different names, and a handgun. The man takes everything but the gun and starts using the name on the American passport, Jason Bourne. After Bourne's departure, a bank employee contacts Operation Treadstone, a CIA black ops program. Its head, Alexander Conklin, issues alerts to police to capture Bourne and assigns three agents – codenamed Castel, Manheim, and the Professor – to kill him.
CIA deputy director Ward Abbott contacts Conklin about a failed assassination attempt against exiled African dictator Wombosi, who promises to deal with the agent who failed. Bourne evades the Swiss police by using his U.S. passport to enter the American consulate but is pursued by Marine guards.
Bourne escapes after offering $20,000 to Marie Kreutz, a 26-year-old German woman he saw at the consulate, to drive him to an address in Paris. From the apartment, Bourne uses the phone to contact a hotel to inquire about the names on his passports. A "John Michael Kane" was registered but died two weeks before in a car crash. Castel ambushes Bourne and Marie in the apartment, but Bourne gets the upper hand. Instead of allowing himself to be interrogated, Castel throws himself from a window to his death.
While searching through Castel's belongings, Marie finds wanted posters of Bourne and herself and so she agrees to help him. After they evade the police in Marie's car, they spend the night in a Paris hotel.
Meanwhile, Wombosi obsesses over the attempt on his life. Conklin, having anticipated this, has planted a body identified as John Michael Kane in a Paris morgue to appear to be the assailant. Wombosi is unconvinced and threatens to report the CIA's actions to the media. The Professor then assassinates Wombosi on Conklin's orders.
Bourne, posing as Kane, learns about the failed assassination attempt on Wombosi's yacht, and that the assassin was shot twice in the back during the escape, ultimately realizing that he was responsible for the attempt. He and Marie take refuge in the French countryside home of Marie's half-brother Eamon and his children.
Under pressure from Abbott to handle the matter, Conklin tracks Bourne's location and sends the Professor to kill him. Bourne mortally wounds the Professor, who reveals their shared connection to Treadstone before dying. Bourne sends Marie, Eamon, and the children away for their protection. He then contacts Conklin via the Professor's phone, and they agree to meet alone in Paris.
When Bourne sees that Conklin is not alone, he abandons their meeting but places a tracking device on his car, leading Bourne to the Treadstone safe house in Paris. He breaks in and holds Conklin and logistics technician Nicky Parsons at gunpoint. Conklin reveals his association with Treadstone and presses him to remember his past. Bourne recalls his attempt to assassinate Wombosi through successive flashbacks.
Under orders from Treadstone, Bourne had infiltrated Wombosi's yacht and got close enough to assassinate him and make it appear as if he had been murdered by a member of his own entourage. However, Bourne could not kill Wombosi while his children were present, and believing he would have to kill the children too, he instead fled, being shot during his escape and losing his memory.
Bourne announces he is resigning from Treadstone and warns Conklin not to follow him. As agents descend on the safe house, he fights his way out. As Conklin leaves, he is killed by Manheim under Abbott's orders. Abbott later shuts down Treadstone using Conklin's right hand Danny Zorn. Both of them report to an oversight committee that Treadstone is a "decommissioned" former program of theoretical game-scenario exercises before diverting the discussion to a new project codenamed "Blackbriar".
Some time later, Bourne finds Marie renting out scooters to tourists on Mykonos, and they reunite.
Cast
In addition, Julia Stiles appears as Nicolette (Nicky Parsons), in a role that would be elevated to main cast billing in three later films of the Bourne franchise. Other actors in the film include Orso Maria Guerrini as Giancarlo, Tim Dutton as Eamonn, Denis Braccini as Picot, Nicky Naudé as Castel, Russell Levy as Manheim, and Vincent Franklin as Rawlins.
Production Development Attempts to develop a film adaptation of The Bourne Identity began in 1981, when film producer Anthony Lazzarino and Ludlum's literary agent Henry Morrison's company Windwood/Glen Productions purchased the film rights to the novel shortly after its publication. Morrison left the company shortly afterwards, and Lazzarino optioned the film to Orion Pictures in exchange for a 3.75 percent interest and a presentation credit. This option was eventually acquired by Warner Bros. Pictures, which intended to make a film adaptation directed by Jack Clayton and starring Burt Reynolds. However, the film did not move forward because Reynolds was uninterested. Warner Bros. produced a television adaptation of the novel for ABC in 1988, but otherwise did nothing with its option and allowed the rights to revert to the Ludlum estate in 1999.
Director Doug Liman had been a fan of the source novel by Robert Ludlum since he read it in high school. Near the end of production of Liman's previous film Swingers in 1996, Liman decided to develop a film adaptation of the novel. However, he could not initially move forward with the project because Warner Bros. still owned the film rights. After more than two years of securing rights to the book and a further year of screenplay development with screenwriter Tony Gilroy, the film went through two years of production.'The Bourne Identity' DVD Commentary Featuring Doug Liman (2003). Universal Pictures acquired the film rights to Ludlum's books in the hopes of starting a new film franchise, and because studio CEO Stacey Snider later admitted to being "intrigued by the pairing of an independent-minded filmmaker with a familiar studio genre." Ludlum approved of the adaptation after befriending Liman, who repeatedly visited the author's home to consult him.
Writing David Self was brought in to write the screenplay in 1999 after Gilroy initially declined the offer. His screenplay was more faithful to the original novel. Unlike Liman, Gilroy disliked Ludlum's novels and considered them poorly suited to a film adaptation, calling Self's original script "a huge fifteen-gunmen-on-the-Metro-blowing-the-fuck-out-of-everything kind of movie." However, Gilroy agreed to write a new screenplay for the film after Liman took his advice to abandon everything from the original novel except for the basic plot involving "a guy who finds the only thing he knows how to do is kill people." Gilroy subsequently rewrote almost the entire film, although William Blake Herron was later brought in to rewrite Gilroy's script to have more action. Most of Herron's rewrites were abandoned after Matt Damon threatened to quit the role of Bourne if they were included in support of Liman and Gilroy, but Herron still received a writer's credit after the opening scene he composed for the film was included.
Gilroy's new script rewrote the Treadstone program and its director Alexander Conklin into the film's primary antagonists; in the novel both they and Bourne had been pursuing the terrorist "Carlos the Jackal" and Treadstone had only tried to assassinate Bourne because they believed he had deliberately gone rogue from his mission after his amnesia. "Carlos the Jackal" could not appear as an antagonist in the film at all because in real life he had been captured and imprisoned by the French government in 1994. The film's portrayal of Treadstone was inspired by Liman's father Arthur L. Liman's memoirs regarding his involvement as chief counsel for the United States Senate investigation of the Iran–Contra affair. Many aspects of the Alexander Conklin character were based on his father's recollections of Oliver North. Gilroy also abandoned the novel's original backstory for Bourne as a former Foreign Service officer recruited to the United States Army Special Forces during the Vietnam War after his family had been killed in the secret bombing of Cambodia and posing as an assassin named "Cain" to lure "Carlos" out of hiding. Liman admitted that he jettisoned much of the content of the novel beyond the central premise, in order to modernize the material and to conform it to his own beliefs regarding United States foreign policy. However, Liman was careful not to cram his political views down "the audience's throat".
There were initial concerns regarding the film's possible obsolescence and overall reception in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. As a result, producer Frank Marshall reshot a new ending in which Ward Abbott offers to recruit Bourne back to the CIA and abandons the agency's pursuit of him even after he declines. The ending was not included in the theatrical cut because it was deemed too different from the rest of the film.
Casting