USA orders Bourne TV spin-off

The Matt Damon movie franchise began with The Bourne Identity

NBCUniversal (NBCU)-backed USA Network is bringing the Jason Bourne movie franchise to TV after making a straight-to-series order for a spin-off.

Treadstone will delve further into the undercover CIA programmes from the films and follows an array of sleeper agents as they carry out missions around the world.

The show, which will not feature the movie’s star Matt Damon, is being produced by Universal Cable Productions and will be written by Tim Kring (Heroes).

Kring exec produces with director Ramin Bahrani alongside Ben Smith, Jeffrey Weiner, Dan Friedkin, Bradley Thomas and Justin Levy.

The project was ordered to pilot earlier this year, although USA’s order for an entire season came before the pilot was completed. Production on the series is expected to start in 2019.

A CIA operation called Treadstone was a key plot line within the Bourne films, which comprise five movies and were initially based on novels by Robert Ludlum.

The franchise started in 2002 with The Bourne Identity, directed by Doug Liman, before Paul Greengrass took the helm for The Bourne Supremacy (2004), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) and Jason Bourne (2016).

The five films are estimated to have grossed more than US$1.6bn and are from NBCU sibling Universal Pictures, with the TV order another example of a studio re-versioning its existing IP for a TV series.

The order comes a month after USA revealed it was cancelling Carlton Cuse and Ryan Condal’s sci-fi drama Colony after three seasons. Yesterday the network also axed fellow drama Shooter after three seasons.