Pokerlistings.com recently held some interviews with Matt Damon and Rounders co-writer David Levien where Levien said that he and writing partner Brian Koppelman have been concentrating on a second go-round. Damon was enthusiastic about the idea of a sequel, saying that he had a blast on the first film and that “everybody would probably come back.”

If you are one of the unfortunate souls not to have seen the first film, it kind of predated and possibly assisted the poker phenomenon of the early 2000s, telling the story of a young card shark (Damon) and his reckless friend (Edward Norton) who get in trouble with loan sharks and have to use their gambling talent to pay off their debt. But that ain’t the half of it. The movie sports one of the juiciest screenplays ever, with seedy details about the New York poker world and its quirky patrons splashed across the canvas. Toss in a cast of perennially fine standbys like John Malkovich, John Turturro and Martin Landau and you have a born classic.

I loved the first film, but sequel didn’t jump out at me when it was over. It always felt too austere to really accommodate that treatment, but it isn’t so dark that sequel becomes an impossibility. I won’t ruin the ending for anyone, but it doesn’t exactly finish on a note where you think these guys are likely to continue their adventures in another installment. But Koppelman and Levien are extremely talented (they have Ocean’s Thirteen and the underseen Knockaround Guys, which they also directed, to their credit) and I would be interested to see what they could do with another film…that is, if they could get some of the same people back.                           

It seems Good Will Hunting has been working on a quirky espionage comedy directed by Steven Soderbergh entitled The Informant.  

The guy who directed Ocean’s Eleven and Erin Brockovich doing a movie that looks like you put those two movies in a blender with Burn After Reading and hit puree?  I’m in.

Check out the trailer below.

Producer Frank Marshall announced via Twitter yesterday that Bourne 4 will be penned by none other than George Nolfi. Who the fuck is George Nolfi? He’s the guy who wrote the really convoluted but kind of amusing Ocean’s Twelve. He also penned the not that great Michael Douglas as a rogue secret service agent action flick The Sentinel.

Marshall has commented that he would like to see Bourne go to South America in this one. Why? I guess because he’s ripped up most of Europe and he feels the need to relocate to another continent. I myself am not much of a Bourne fan, but it is possible that that could change. I think Nolfi has talent, though I am sad to see that Tony Gilroy outgrew these movies. From what I’ve seen of them, he has done a good job.