Matt Damon is confident the Bourne franchise will return – but fans will have to wait a while.

“I think it’s kind of a thing where enough time has passed where it won’t matter if we wait five more years and do it,” the actor admitted backstage at the Critics Choice Awards.

“We just want to make sure if we do it we do it right,” he insisted.

“There’s been a lot of pressure for us to do it, obviously because it’s successful, but that’s that moment I think where you’ve got to step back and make sure you don’t make a mistake and make it for the wrong reasons.”

Since the success of The Bourne Ultimatum in 2007, Matt says he and filmmaker Paul Greengrass have been keen not to rush into anything.

“It’s really up to Paul Greengrass because I’ve always said I wouldn’t do it without him,” Matt said.

“When it feels like the right time, I think Paul will be open to doing it.

“I think Paul’s probably going to do one or two other films that he’s got cooking but then after that, I’m sure.”

Matt was at the Critics Choice Awards to receive the Joel Siegel Award for Service to the Community. The 40-year-old was keen to talk about his charity Water.org which is helping developing countries get safe drinking water and basic sanitation.

“I see when these things are implemented and the affect that they have, that’s a great story to be able to bring back and that to me is what gives me an optimism about it.”

Matt Damon’s still smarting over Universal ditching him from the fourth Bourne movie, and now says he’d consider making his own Bourne flick without the studio.

The actor inists the rights are available, and he’d happily make the movie with director Paul Greengrass at the helm.

Despite saying he wasn’t against Universal’s plans to continue the series without him and Greengrass, Damon has made it clear he resents the way he found out, hearing about it through the press, like everybody else.

Damon told Empire, “No one told me, literally nobody called me. People think I have inside information, but you can get a sense of where I am in the pecking order.

“I’d do it again with Paul. Universal doesn’t actually own the Bourne character – the estate does – so technically I could go to Warner Bros… and Universal could read about it online.”

Matt Damon played the amnesiac assassin in three movies between 2002 and 2007, while Paul Greengrass helmed the second two movies, Supremacy and Ultimatum, to much critical acclaim.

Last summer Universal announced plans for a fourth movie, which would feature characters from the previous movies, but wouldn’t include Jason Bourne himself, nor would it be directed by Greengrass. Universal did, however, leave the door open for Damon’s return.

Despite not being asked back for Universal’s next Jason Bourne movie, star Matt Damon has suggested that he and director Paul Greengrass could legally make their own Bourne movie.

The duo, who teamed up to give us the Bourne Trilogy would, according to Matt Damon, be well within their rights to make their own movie based on the famous spy novels as Universal don’t own the exclusive rights to Jason Bourne’s adventures. Judging from his interview with Empire, it seems that Matt Damon is pretty annoyed that no one has informed him on an official level about Universal’s intentions to make a new Bourne movie without him and Paul Greengrass…

“No one told me, literally nobody called me. People think I have inside information, but you can get a sense of where I am in the pecking order. I’d do it again with Paul [Greengrass]. Universal doesn’t actually own the Bourne character – the estate does – so technically I could go to Warner Bros… and Universal could read about it online.”

A-list star Matt Damon is said to be locked in a dispute with Hollywood giant Universal, after finding out he was being replaced for the fourth film over the Internet.

The star features in all three of the current films, as action star Jason Bourne. But late last year rumours circle that Matt would not be reprising his role.

Now the star has confirmed that bosses are planning on taking the Bourne films forward without him, revealing he only found out they were planning to make a fourth movie after he found out over the internet.

‘I read online they are doing another Jason Bourne movie with Tony Gilroy directing that I’m not in,’ the Sun reports the angry star as saying.

‘No one told me, literally nobody called me. People think I have inside information, but you can get a sense of where I am in the pecking order.’

Now it’s thought Matt might even make his own version of the new Bourne movie, along with director of the previous three films, Paul Greengrass.

‘I’d do it again with Paul. Universal doesn’t actually own the Bourne character – the estate does – so technically I could go to Warner Bros… and Universal could read about it online,’ he said.

Will the Bourne films be the same without Matt Damon? Or would you like to see the star make more of the hit movies? Let us know your thoughts in the comments box below.

“I found out they’re making another when somebody saw it on the Internet,” the erstwhile franchise poster boy has confessed. “Nobody bothered to call me. I’m not in it, but even so, they’ll work Bourne into the title I guess. Universal just wants to call everything the Bourne something. So I guess they are trying to make another franchise and as they say, ‘It isn’t over until it’s over.’” Add Bourne Under a Bad Sign to the list of alternate titles, I suppose. [Parade via Vulture]