Matt Damon: I hope that fans of Bourne movies will want to watch my new Iraq-set thriller Green Zone

Speaking at the UK press conference for the film, his third collaboration with Paul Greengrass, Damon said that “Green Zone” needs to attract a ” good chunk” of the Bourne audience to be financially successful.

“The fundamental question was could we make a film that had audience appeal & get a good chunk of that Bourne audience over into a film that was about a fictional character in the real world rather than a fictional character in a fictional world,” Damon said.

Greengrass noted that he is aware of the lack of box office power displayed by movies about the Iraq war, but feels that it is vital for Hollywood to produce works such as Green Zone.

“It´s pointless to pretend that [box office is] not an issue,” he commented. “It always felt to me, after Bourne Ultimatum, that the challenge for us was could we take a broad audience to this subject? It is important, in my mind anyway, that across the waterfront of cinema in a given year that it remains alive and engages directly in the world we live in.”

Greengrass cited “The Dark Knight” as an example of ambitious mainstream filmmaking. “I think Dark Knight is a hugely successful film,” he said. “It is one of the best films of the past ten years because I think its themes and its darkness & its creative ambitions are absolutely huge. But of course it´s a gigantically popular Batman movie.”