FWIW, I went to an 11:00 a.m. showing and theater was nearly packed (a few empty seats). (I've never been to that early of a showing and seen a full theater.
You do have a point RR as far as the "third" movie in a trilogy. Very unusual that the third isn't "less" than the other two.
TIS
The three big moments the audience loved in ULTIMATUM:
*David Strathairn sees Bourne for the first time on the security camera in London: SHIT!
*Damon in Madrid calling in a report of gunfire to the cops, then fired shots off. The audience laughed at this.
*Biggest Laugh: "You really didn't think I would be at Taper Park, DID YOU?"
I do think its interesting that when I heard about what happens in ULTIMATUM way back in May, the first thing that came to mind was:
"Well, how can Greengrass make ULTIMATUM work as being 80% set between Matt Damon limping in Moscow to calling Joan Allen in New York? Wouldn't that be an awkward gimmick to pull off?"
But dammit, he made it work. Son of a bitch he made it WORK!
Then again, the other two big plot points of ULTIMATUM ultimately were toned down from being as explicit to being subtle(or as how I would describe as "subtle"):
Warning, Spoiler:
(1)Originally, before Greengrass got the bright idea of the ULTIMATUM-SUPREMACY connection, the 3rd Act of the earliet script drafts took place in Washington D.C. where, yes, Jason Bourne breaks into the heart of the CIA, and then the finale be that he is shot while falling into the Potomic River.
But when Greengrass wanted to pull that connection off, the whole D.C. part was re-written for NYC (but Bourne still breaks into the CIA, just not Langley)
(2) The fact that Damon and Julia Stiles' characters, before Damon got the amnesia, were an item together went from being outright explicit to being strongly suggested. Perhaps that change was for the better.
