Summit Entertainment; Universal StudiosWho knows, maybe one day Jimmy Kimmel will be apologizing to Jeremy Renner at the end of every show!
According to trade reports, the two-time Oscar nominee has been offered the role of the new leading-man super assassin, who like Jason Bourne will still be every bad guy's favorite target, in The Bourne Legacy.
The fourth film in the series, based on the Robert Ludlum (and now Eric Von Lustbader) novels, has, so far, been most notable for not starring Matt Damon.
Damon had said that he wouldn't return to the franchise if Paul Greengrass, who directed The Bourne Supremacy and Ultimatum, didn't return as well—and, well, he didn't.
So new director Tony Gilroy went ahead and shrugged, calling Legacy a "stand-alone project" anyway.
Renner, who was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his breakout role in The Hurt Locker and Supporting Actor this year for The Town (directed by Damon's best bud Ben Affleck, incidentally), certainly knows his way around guns and things that go bang. He's also going to be in The Avengers, playing the arrow-slinging Hawkeye.
We'll get a load of his nonwartime, noncriminal get-out-of-a-jam skills, however, when he hits theaters with Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol in December, another franchise that has been rumored to want to lock Renner up for more screen time.