The Bourne series of action movies is noteworthy for being one of the few intelligent products that have come out of Hollywood. It’s a cerebral series of action movies that pay close attention to plot and acting as much as to action setpieces. After a contentious production for Bourne Identity because star Matt Damon and director Doug Liman couldn’t see eye-to-eye, which still resulted in a quality movie, the series really began to hit its stride when Paul Greengrass assumed the director’s chair for Bourne Supremacy and Bourne Ultimatum.

With plans for a fourth Bourne movie underway, everything was running smoothly, until news came out that Greengrass has reportedly “walked away” from the sequel. This will put the production of the fourth movie in jeopardy because Matt Damon is extremely close to Greengrass and this could make Damon decide to leave the production as well as a show of solidarity with his friend.

The problem seems to have originated from the producers’ decision to hire another writer to work on another script when the first script by George Nolfi (who wrote Bourne Ultimatum) was not universally liked. Greengrass seems to have taken exception for not being consulted in hiring the new new writer.

With the new Bourne movie looking like it’s in limbo, it will be a few more years before we see another intelligent action movie coming out of Hollywood. Believe me, Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables, one of the hotly anticipated action movies in production, won’t win any awards for cinematic intelligence.

The Playlist does add that walking away might be a “typical Paul move” and that he possibly could be back on the project in a few months.