Jeremy Renner Starred In This Underrated Action Movie The Same Year As The Avengers

There was a period when Jeremy Renner was on a winning streak. After landing a role in Kathryn Bigelow's award-winning war drama, "The Hurt Locker," he was appearing everywhere. Besides following it up with an impressive performance in the Ben Affleck-directed heist movie, "The Town," he then started switching between spy stories and superhero outings in three of the biggest franchises at that time.

After joining the IMF alongside Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol" and drawing back his bow with Earth's Mightiest Heroes in "The Avengers," Renner dared to try and pick up the slack left by Matt Damon's amnesiac assassin, Jason Bourne, in the spin-off espionage thriller "The Bourne Legacy." While it received a lukewarm reception at the time and a so-so success at the box office, it feels that, even riding off of the "The Avengers," Renner's run in the Bourne-verse stands as another project that had potential — but suffered from the same issue that so many franchise tagalongs fail from.

After the release of "The Bourne Ultimatum," the dynamic duo of director Paul Greengrass and star Matt Damon agreed that the third film would be their last encounter with Treadstone's deadliest asset. This forced Universal to try and produce whatever it could for this cold world of agents who killed targets with rolled-up newspapers. Its solution was a diversion featuring a different character entirely named Aaron Cross (Renner), who, after breaking free from a program similar to Bourne's that used chemical enhancements, had our hero turn against those who created him. Cue Moby.

On paper, there were far too many names in this cast list for "The Bourne Legacy" not to attract the right amount of attention. Besides Renner's rising star leading the charge, he got support from the likes of Rachel Weisz as a scientist and loose end of the program that created Cross. There's also Edward Norton as the shady government head shouting at expendable assets to try and fail at killing our hero, and even an early appearance from Oscar Isaac (who would go on to achieve even greater things).

Then there's the story. While a bit bold in its genetic enhancement and super-soldier themes, it still honors the name of Bourne in various ways. Alongside the events of "The Bourne Ultimatum," Renner's Cross hits just as hard and creatively as Matt Damon's government nightmare in knitwear, though it takes its time to deliver its first punch. Speeding through streets on bikes at the same pace as the original agent and taking down enemies with equally inventive methods, "The Bourne Legacy" is just as entertaining as the franchise it spins off from. It also represents an impressive effort from Tony Gilroy; the film is one of his rare directorial outings after writing the first three films. It's a shame, then, that if it had been removed from Jason Bourne's story, it might have had the potential to forge its own future as a Renner-led franchise, which he was struggling to establish at the time.

Even with all its nods and references to Jason Bourne's journey (whose name is literally carved into the film at one point), "The Bourne Legacy" might have had a chance to succeed if it hadn't been so reliant on the spy movies it originated from. Splitting off from a beloved franchise is always risky, but it's even more so for stories that are too afraid to stand on their own and do their own thing. Gilroy's critically acclaimed "Star Wars" story, "Andor," is a prime example of how well this kind of story can work, which "The Bourne Legacy" failed to do. The result is what led to the off-handed story earning a decent-but-not-dynamite box office of $280 million against a budget of $125 million. This level of success wasn't enough, with any talk of a sequel or crossover getting swiftly quashed and Damon getting called up again to return as Bourne in 2016.

For Renner, it was another failed franchise that had every chance not to be. Had it perhaps applied the practices of the government agencies it focused on and redacted the links to Bourne until a perfectly timed reveal, Renner's rebellious agent could've caught enough attention. Deservedly so, given that it's actually a better watch than "Jason Bourne" in the "Bourne" movie rankings. In the end, Hollywood might've seen "The Bourne Legacy" briefly tarnish the franchise it was part of, but we say that Renner's solo espionage outing is still one worth remembering.