Damon Says No to Bourne But Yes to Greengrass

Matt Damon may have said no to the fourth installment of the Bourne legacy (good for you Matt, no need to beat a dead horse!), but he has definitely said yes to working with director Paul Greengrass again on an entirely different endeavor. This time, Damon and Greengrass will create a film based off of the book Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone (which we first told you about here), written by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. The film will drop the last part of the previous title but will deal solidly with the very political subject matter.

It doesn't seem unusual at all lately for either artist to choose work that has close ties to what's going on with the world at large. Politics, war and corruption in all the world's 'systems' has been a common thread for both -- Damon's portrayal as an undercover criminal FBI agent in The Departed gave me a new level of appreciation for his work. Greengrass is responsible for bringing us last year's fresh and catastrophically brilliant United 93. Whether the world was ready to see it or not Greengrass didn't hesitate to capture his perception of the real-life events and project them on the screen for the world to see.

Imperial Life in the Emerald City deals with the actual happenings inside Iraq's now insurgency ridden infrastructure. The book discusses and presents reasons for the prolonged troops in Iraq and instability and negligence with rebuilding a thriving government. Greengrass will adapt the screenplay himself, dealing unapologetically with the (unfortunately) non fiction material -- making a terribly interesting picture at the very least and perhaps another gifted and strangely familiar role for Matt Damon.