When is a remake not a remake? When you put the word Legacy in the title, change the main characters and have at least part of your film happening at the same time as the last one. The Bourne Legacy is an interesting film in that it shows yet another way in which studios are attempting to extend franchises. Whether its splitting The Hobbit in two or rebooting Spider-Man after just five years, there's desperation out there to squeeze every penny from a proven property. Enter the Legacy film and five more 'franchises' that could get Legacy-ised. Legacyed. Lega... needs work.
Collateral
Those familiar with Michael Mann's 2004 effort might see where this is going straight away but for those who don't remember, it features one of the best cameos going, in any film, ever. Vincent receives his case from none other than Jason Statham, who walks on, says, 'yeah, I'm fine mate, don't worry about it' and walks off again. Who is he? What is he doing? Does he drop cases off all the time? These questions must be answered! A legacy film must be made!
Bridesmaids
There's plenty of legacy-friendly material here but here's a niche one: Terry Crews' fitness instructor. Our legacy film would start with the scene where Annie and Lillian try to sneakily take advantage of his rather vociferous training and then leave them to follow Crews and his exploits. Does he have a client he falls in love with? Is he the target of a Globo Gym style takeover? Who knows! Perfect legacy material.
Fast
At some point, Universal will run out of ways to make Fast films in their current guise and some members of the cast will finally find other gainful employment elsewhere. Those two concepts may seem highly unlikely currently but hey, no franchise can last forever (unless you're Bond, which this, erm, isn't). There are several options for a legacy franchise though and the series has kind of already tried it once with Tokyo Drift. How about following a policeman assigned to a task force with the task of researching the crimes linked to street racing, having been alerted to them by Toretto and O'Conner's gang... which sounds an awful lot like the first film. Perfect legacy material!
Mission: Impossible
It's yet to be confirmed but the handover on this may have already happened, with Jeremy Renner's Brandt all set up to take over from Ethan Hunt, if they decide to go that way. A legacy-type plot wouldn't be too difficult to concoct on this basis either. Perhaps Hunt under investigation for some sort of event, perhaps something that cropped up in one of the previous films. Hunt has gone missing and its down to Brandt to find out the facts and clear the name of his former team-mate. Hunt cameo at the end, waving to Brandt with his wife from a distance? You bet. Jeremy Renner to star in two legacy franchises? You'd have to say that one makes this less likely.
The Departed
Come on... who doesn't want to see the extended adventures of very-sweary Dignam!
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