Denzel Washington Once Said He Saw Matt Damon’s ‘The Bourne Supremacy’ and ‘It Pissed Me off’
Matt Damon’s Bourne Supremacy once caught the attention of fellow actor Denzel Washington. Washington was starring in his own action film around that time. But soon he took note of how Damon was leading his own franchise.
How Denzel Washington reacted to ‘The Bourne Supremacy’
The same year Damon debuted his sequel to The Bourne Identity, Washington came out with his own action film. Washington played tormented ex-CIA agent John Creasy in Tony Scott’s Man on Fire. It was a project he developed alongside Scott.
“Well when I first read it I did not think it was all there so I sat down with Tony and he was so passionate about it,” Washington once told Phase 9. “He walked me through it and made it clear that we could work on the script, as he also wanted to get it right. Tony was originally meant to have done this film a long time ago but at the time it was not possible. He was worried about me portraying a ‘heavy’, I just told him to concentrate on the camera and leave the rest up to me!”
He felt that another prior film also helped nab him the role. His Oscar-winning 2001 feature might have shown directors that Washington was capable of playing darker characters.
“I think Training Day brought this all out, after I did that people in the industry started to perceive me in a new light,” he said.
Still, Washington took note that he was behind a star like Damon in regards to doing action movies. Washington was interested in leading his own franchise.
“I saw The Bourne Supremacy the other day and it pissed me off, he has a nice little franchise going there, maybe I could do another one of these Creasy stories,” he said.
Matt Damon felt Denzel Washington could star in a Jason Bourne film
Before 2016’s Jason Bourne, Damon wasn’t convinced there was much further direction to take his character. Damon figured the studio would be interested in perpetuating the Bourne IP. So the actor explained how the Bourne films could continue without Jason Bourne.
“Well, I think that they have a good way to do a prequel with someone else, and basically make it about the Bourne identity, the actual identity. What any studio is interested in is making it like an evergreen, so it can just go on, and on, and on, and it never will with our character because he’s going to resolve himself and he’s resolved his issues now,” Damon once told Collider.
Similarly to James Bond, he figured the spy franchise could feature a revolving roster of actors to lead the films.
“But I think what we could do, is like, you know, so you can do some movies with another actor, anyway, whether it’s Ryan Gosling or Russell Crowe or Denzel Washington, and he’s Jason Bourne. And then at the end of his one movie, or two movies, or three movies, you see them getting ready to pass the identity on to me, so it just becomes like a 007, it becomes a name that they give this certain person who’s uniquely positioned,” Damon said.
Denzel Washington starred in his own series of action films with ‘The Equalizer’
Although he couldn’t continue his adventures with John Creasy, Washington attached himself to another action film years later. He starred in The Equalizer as Robert McCall, who was a former government agent using his skills to protect civilians. He collaborated with his Training Day director Antoine Fuqua for the movie, and the pair did three Equalizer films together.
Washington kept returning to the franchise for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons was the response from his fans.
“You know, the doormen in my building in New York, they love this guy. I talk to them about other films [and] they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, Fences, yeah, good movie. But when is the next [Equalizer?]’ I’m like, ‘Why do you love him?’ He says, ‘Cause he can get the people we can’t get, you know? He’s the equalizer. He goes and gets revenge on those who need more than a good talking to.’ So, I’m just the guy for the job,” Washington once told Cinemacon (via ET).
Still, despite the trilogy, Washington and Fuqua were hesitant to call The Equalizer films a franchise.
“We never thought about it as a franchise, it’s a film on its own. It’s a part of a franchise, but it’s a film on its own,” Fuqua said. “So we dealt with it that way. That’s what we talked about. Just this film, we don’t talk about one and two. [They’re] done.”
