FILM · 2007 · USA
The Bourne Ultimatum
- Directed by
- Paul Greengrass
- Runtime
- 115 min
- Studio
- Universal Pictures, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, Ludlum Entertainment
46 archived facts 6 topics 1 source Last reviewed Nov 2026
Bourne is brought out of hiding once again by reporter Simon Ross who is trying to unveil Operation Blackbriar, an upgrade to Project Treadstone, in a series of newspaper columns. Information from the reporter stirs a new set of memories, and Bourne must finally uncover his dark past while dodging The Company's best efforts to eradicate him.
46 Interesting Facts About The Bourne Ultimatum
Interesting Facts (28)
- #001
Contains a major spoiler — show
Jason Bourne's final line — "look at us. Look at what they make us give" — echoes the dying words of the Professor (Clive Owen) in The Bourne Identity (2002).
- #002
Contains a major spoiler — show
The production allotted six weeks to film the thrilling car chase in lower Manhattan. In the sequence, all vehicles are operated at no more than thirty-five miles per hour, because the New York Police Department would not permit greater speeds due to public safety concerns.
- #003
While they were filming in Tangier, it was the middle of Ramadan, when Muslims fast; no Muslim there could eat or drink during daylight hours. Interviews in the bonus material reveal that many crew members were Muslim and found it exhausting to shoot the film while unable to eat or drink. Matt Damon says he thought about how they would look "longingly at a cup of coffee or a sandwich." To accommodate these crew members, the rest of the crew tried to eat and drink discreetly.
- #004
The scene in which Bourne calls Pam Landy while watching her from a nearby building was reshot for this film. The footage from the end of The Bourne Supremacy (2004) was not used (except for a very brief shot of Pam Landy's office taken as Bourne hangs up the phone).
- #005
In his commentary on the R2 DVD, Paul Greengrass states that the relationship between Nicky and Bourne was deliberately scripted and filmed as "ambiguous but significant" prior to the memory loss.
- #006
Because the film's opening scene takes place immediately after the end of The Bourne Supremacy (2004), but the production gap was about three years, it was already January in Moscow. It would have been very cold there, so Berlin was chosen as the filming location and a Moscow set was built. The fake snow was made using paper and foam, and covering the entire set took more than five hours. Because paper and foam were used instead of real snow, there was no risk of melting.
- #007
In the file Pamela Landy faxes, a photo of producer Frank Marshall appears as one of the terminated agents.
- #008
The photo of Richard Chamberlain appears as one of the victims "terminated" by Bourne. Richard Chamberlain played the original Jason Bourne in the 1988 television film The Bourne Identity.
- #009
Contains a major spoiler — show
Although Jason Bourne is seen smiling in a flashback from The Bourne Identity (2002), he never smiles in this film.
- #010
Contains a major spoiler — show
The end-title music for The Bourne Identity (2002) and The Bourne Supremacy (2004) uses the same recording of Moby's "Extreme Ways." This film uses a new performance of the same song, titled "Extreme Ways (Bourne's Ultimatum)," with a completely different mix.
- #011
Contains a major spoiler — show
As shown to Pam Landy on a computer screen, Jason Bourne enters New York from Brazil as Gilberto de Piento. The identity's passport is briefly shown in The Bourne Identity (2002) during Jason's investigation of the safe deposit box in Zurich, but there the spelling is Gilberto do Piento. Also in The Bourne Identity (2002), the name appears not as one of Bourne's aliases but as the name of the Brazilian Federal Police chief who signed the passport. In the old 2002 Brazilian passport, Bourne's name appears on another page and is actually given as João do Carmo.
- #012
At the CIA relay station where an operator listens to Simon Ross's call using Echelon, the numbers shown on screen are various locations in the United Kingdom. One of the numbers is 020 7946 0621, among others. These are fake numbers used by television and theater companies to add more realistic drama to films, no different from the "555" system used in the United States. The screen also shows Reading's dialing code and the fictional 01632 (the US "555" equivalent).
- #013
Contains a major spoiler — show
Paz, the asset pursuing Bourne, refuses to shoot him. The name Paz means "peace" in Spanish.
- #014
When the CIA hacks Simon Ross's Guardian email, it finds a round-trip ticket to Turin, and the email is shown as sent from adrian.spanna@guardian.co.uk. Adrian Spanna worked on the film as a Second Unit Video Assist Operator.
- #015
As Bourne runs through the apartment buildings in Tangier, Morocco, there is a brief scene of a boy playing a game on a television to his right on the bed. The game is Hitman: Contracts (2004), in which you play a superhuman assassin traveling the world to kill high-profile targets, just as Bourne did before his amnesia.
- #016
Contains a major spoiler — show
When Landy sends Bourne an encrypted message via his fake date of birth, Bourne directs her to an address on East 71st Street. In the Jason Bourne books, Treadstone 71, the project that trained David Webb to become Jason Bourne, was based at 71st Street, New York.
- #017
Edgar Ramírez, who plays an assassin in this film, also played Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, Carlos, in the miniseries Carlos (2010). Carlos "The Jackal," though somewhat different from his counterpart in the miniseries, was the main antagonist of the Bourne trilogy written by Robert Ludlum.
- #018
The average shot length in the film is two seconds.
- #019
Contains a major spoiler — show
Nicky is actually a somewhat trained field agent with various martial arts skills (judo, jiu jitsu) and some firearms training. This can be seen when her and Bourne's profile is shown on a screen before it is sent to Desh. However, she spent her career in logistics rather than hands-on field work.
- #020
Shooting in crowded locations such as the market in Tangier, the streets of New York City and London's Waterloo Station meant the producers essentially had to film in a guerrilla style. The presence of a large, conspicuous film crew could have affected the crowds in these places and interrupted the natural flow.
- #021
Tom Stoppard did an uncredited polish on the screenplay. He was mainly responsible for fleshing out the relationship between Bourne and Nikki.
- #022
Theatrical release prints were delivered to cinemas in two shipments, each under a fake name. Odd-numbered reels were labeled "Umber"; even-numbered reels were labeled "Buum".
- #023
The Tangier sequence was heavily influenced by the work of Gillo Pontecorvo, particularly his film The Battle of Algiers (1966). Pontecorvo died during the production of this section, and the cast and crew held a minute of silence in his memory.
- #024
CRI is a CIA "front company" or "proprietary company". It stands for Controlled Resources International.
- #025
Twenty years earlier, James Bond had run across the rooftops of Tangier to escape the police in The Living Daylights (1987).
- #026
A copy of former United States President Bill Clinton's autobiography "My Life" can be seen on a shelf in Vosen's office. Above Clinton's, a copy of Nelson Mandela's autobiography "Long Walk to Freedom" is visible.
- #027
Early promotional materials listed the writing credits as: Screenplay and Screenplay: Tony Gilroy. However, Gilroy later retained the sole screenplay credit and, after an arbitration conducted by the Writers Guild of America, received a shared screenplay credit with Scott Z. Burns and George Nolfi.
- #028
Paul Attanasio played an intensive role in rewriting the thrilling scene between Bourne and Hirsch.
Production Story (11)
- #029
The café Nicky Parsons chooses in Tangier as the meeting place is the Café de Paris, a popular haunt of spies and diplomats during the years when Tangier was an International City.
- #030
- #031
The ending of this film mirrors the beginning of The Bourne Identity (2002), in which Bourne swims in a body of water.
- #032
During the shooting of the London scenes, Matt Damon also shot a scene for Ocean's Thirteen (2007). It is the scene in which Damon's character walks down the street discussing the security of the target casino.
- #033
Operation Blackbriar, the focus of the film, was introduced in The Bourne Identity (2002). Toward the end of the film, Abbott appears before a US congressional oversight committee and declares that Treadstone was a failure; he then closes a file and discusses Operation Blackbriar.
- #034
The swimming stroke Jason Bourne uses is a variant of the combat side stroke, combining a breaststroke arm pull with a scissor kick. The combat side stroke was developed and taught by US Navy SEALs.
- #035
Daniel Brühl plays Marie's brother in only one scene. The character was briefly mentioned in The Bourne Identity (2002).
- #036
The first three Bourne films contain only one explosion scene each. In The Bourne Identity (2002), Bourne blows up a gas tank to distract the Professor while trying to kill him. In The Bourne Supremacy (2004), Bourne breaks a gas line and burns a magazine in a toaster, and after Jarda calls the CIA, Bourne blows up Jarda's house. Backup. In this film, Desh kills Daniels by blowing up his car, which nearly kills Bourne. There is one more small explosion in the chase scene where Jason Bourne pursues Desh and Nicky. He throws an aerosol can into the fire as a distraction.
- #037
After the assassin's report, Bourne's birthday is clearly visible when Landy checks his file. Like the information in the Treadstone document she sees after the Hirsch document, this too gains importance as the story progresses. Both relate to a scene in The Bourne Supremacy (2004).
- #038
Albert Finney plays Dr. Albert Hirsch, the creator who mentored Jason Bourne to become a cold-blooded assassin. Finney later played Kincade, James Bond's kindly protector, in Skyfall (2012), so Finney became a mentor to both Jason Bourne and James Bond, albeit in very different ways.
- #039
The titles of the three films in the Bourne series are arranged in alphabetical order: The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum.
Behind the Scenes (1)
- #040
While filming in Tangier, the crew had to close the city's busiest square for several hours during shooting. In the bonus material you can see a crowd of locals who appear somewhat annoyed, having received no warning that the closure would take place.
Characters & Cast (4)
- #041
In the Tangier chase scene, Nicky, played by Julia Stiles, and Desh, played by Joey Ansah, are seen passing among the citizens. These are not extras; Tangier was very crowded and controlling the flow of people was difficult, so the two really do move through the crowd.
- #042
Contains a major spoiler — show
Although Nicky, played by Julia Stiles, remains on screen for a long time afterwards and is even much discussed, she does not speak at all after Bourne leaves her at the café.
- #043
Tony Gilroy, the main screenwriter of the earlier Bourne films, was hired by the studio to write a draft of the screenplay for The Bourne Ultimatum (2007). Universal greenlit the film based on that draft, but Gilroy did not do any revisions or rewrites because he was committed to his directorial debut, Michael Clayton (2007). In 2011, Matt Damon accused Gilroy of writing a quick draft for the money and then leaving the project in chaos. Damon called the original draft "unreadable" for Gilroy and a potential "career ender," and also said Gilroy arbitrated to claim the screenwriting credit before the film came out (the Writers Guild of America rejected that request). Damon later said that "explaining" anything about the matter was "stupid" for him, because it was between him and Gilroy (either they understood or they would not resolve it). In 2012, Gilroy said that he and Damon had not spoken to each other "in years," though Gilroy later co-wrote The Great Wall (2016), in which Damon starred.
- #044
Contains a major spoiler — show
Edgar Ramírez has only one line of dialogue, similar to the assassin in the first film, The Bourne Identity (2002), played by Clive Owen.
Easter Eggs & References (1)
- #045
Contains a major spoiler — show
In the CIA's deep-cover New York City office, an image of Donald Rumsfeld is visible on a computer monitor.
Career & Awards (1)
- #046
The Bourne Ultimatum is the only Bourne film to win an Oscar. It won all three awards for which it was nominated, while the other Bourne films were not even nominated.
Related pages
- Avatar — The Bourne Ultimatum comes up in the facts on that page
Sources & editorial notes
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