Jeremy Renner has been offered the lead role in director Tony Gilroy’s upcoming ‘The Bourne Legacy’ by Universal Pictures, deadline.com is reporting. The twice-nominated Oscar nominee is believed to have been chosen to play a new character in the spin-off film from Matt Damon’s ‘Bourne’ trilogy, instead of replacing Damon as Jason Bourne.

Reener’s character will be an operative from a covert government program. The program will be even more dangerous than the Treadstone brainwashing program Bourne was a part of.

Universal searched for over two months to cast the lead in the spin-off, which begins production in September. The studio also looked at such actors as Dominic Cooper, Luke Evans, Taylor Kitsch and Garrett Hedlund. Reener was picked in part because he plays the operative Brandt in the upcoming ‘Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol.”

Written by: Karen Benardello