The Bourne Legacy‎

It's been a bit quiet on the Bourne 4 front for a while, but tonight producer Frank Marshall dropped two huge bits of news, via his Twitter feed: the fourth Bourne film will be called The Bourne Legacy, and Tony Gilroy - writer of all three films to date - has been brought on board to bash out the script. Or, more accurately, the treatment. But invariably scripts follow treatments, as surely as revulsion and self-loathing follows watching the first episode of the new series of Big Brother.

First things first: The Bourne Legacy is the fourth novel in the Bourne franchise (albeit the first written by Eric Van Lustbader, who took over after Robert Ludlum died), so they're carrying on the tradition of naming the movies after the books. But so far the Bourne movies have borne little resemblance to the books, and we expect that to happen here too.

There's no word yet whether this will carry on the Bourne franchise, and therefore require Matt Damon to agree to return to the role of the amnesiac assassin, or if it's going to be a prequel, or even that dread concept, the reboot.

The former would seem tricky, as Damon has famously said that he would only play Jason Bourne for a fourth time if Paul Greengrass directed. Greengrass exited the franchise earlier in the year and is currently flirting with an adaptation of Treasure Island. However, now that Gilroy is a director, he could be lined up to direct, in the hope that Damon will be appeased by having an old friend on board. And, after all, Marshall - @LeDoctor on Twitter, if you wish to follow him - didn't specifically state that Gilroy, or "keeper of the Bourne flame", was not directing. Although we admit there's a fair amount of straw-clutching here.

More as we get it. But from our vantage point, this can only be a positive development for the Bourne series. Right?