Last December it was reported that director Paul Greengrass would be walking away from the fourth installment in The Bourne Identity franchise. Greengrass captained the second and third movies (Doug Liman directed the original), and was popular with star Matt Damon, who at one time said he wouldn’t come back if the director wasn’t involved.

Despite the exit of Greengrass, Universal has maintained plans for another installment in the series — now tentatively titled The Bourne Legacy — and now they’ve found the director they want to deliver it. And who better then the man who has personally written the screenplays for all three previous films, Tony Gilroy. The writer was hired a while back to pen the script, which was an obvious choice of course, and it only makes sense to have him embrace the role of director as well.

The studio could have gone out to some other big action-minded talent to come in, but they’ve smartly chosen to utilize someone already involved in the movie who has more knowledge of what goes into Jason Bourne than most others do. This is also a good move because if anyone is going to be enough to lure Damon back, it’s the man that’s written the character all along.

Gilroy doesn’t have a lot of experience in the director’s chair, but he does have enough to ease your worry. Most notably, he helmed Michael Clayton with George Clooney, which nabbed multiple Academy Award nominations including Best Picture. He also directed the Clive Owen and Julia Roberts movie, Duplicity. Other scripts that Gilroy has penned in addition to the Bourne titles and the two that he directed include Dolores Claiborne, The Devil’s Advocate, Proof of Life, and State of Play.

[Source: Deadline]