Earlier today, USA Network released the trailer for the upcoming spy-thriller, Treadstone, premiering this October. Picked up to series back in August, Treadstone is set amidst the CIA black ops program Operation Treadstone, the series explores the origin story and present-day actions of the infamous covert program that uses behavior modification protocol to turn recruits into nearly superhuman assassins. The first season of Treadstone follows sleeper agents across the globe as they’re mysteriously “awakened” to resume their deadly missions. Heroes creator Tim Kring will oversee the series for Universal Cable Productions.
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Kring will script the pilot to be directed by Ramin Bahrani (99 Homes, HBO’s Fahrenheit 451). Universal Cable Productions will launch production in 2019. Kring and Bahrani will serve as executive producers alongside Captive Entertainment’s Jeffrey Weiner and Ben Smith, who were involved 2012’s The Bourne Legacy (Jeremy Renner’s abortive attempt to relaunch the franchise) and 2016’s Jason Bourne (its “return to form” movie with Matt Damon returning to the title role). Justin Levy (Beyond, Heroes Reborn), along with Dan Friedkin and Bradley Thomas for Imperative Entertainment (All the Money in the World), will also have producer roles.
“As the number one cable entertainment network for the past 12 years, USA Network is delivering a dynamic lineup of big, bold programming – and what could be bigger and bolder than the Treadstone mythology?” Chris McCumber, President, Entertainment Networks for NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment, said in a statement at the time the series was picked up.
The globe-spanning series will not center on Jason Bourne himself, but will take up with the Treadstone organization who provided him with his enhanced abilities and stalked him through four movies. Familiar names might pop up, but the series is expected to mostly follow a new group of agents.
In late 2016, series producer Frank Marshall told Yahoo he was eyeing a theatrical Jason Bourne follow-up — which by now seems likely to be dead in the water.
“Obviously they’re very pleased with how [Jason Bourne] turned out. It’s really about the story, just like on this one, everyone said ‘if you come to us with a good story, we’ll think about it,’” Marshall said. “So right now, we’re taking a pause and then we’re going to dive back in and try to find a story. We did leave it wide open at the end of the movie to continue on in Bourne’s world so we’ll see what we can come up with.”
Marshall said at the time the movie-side of the universe probably won’t revisit the storyline explored in the 2012 Renner film. Given the premise of the new one, it seems like NBC Universal mostly believes that the flaw in the Renner approach was branding it as “Bourne,” which likely led to some disappointed consumers when Damon wasn’t part of it.
The series stars Jeremy Irvine, Tracy Ifeachor, Omar Metwally, Brian J. Smith, Hyo Joo Han, Gabrielle Scharnitzky, Emilia Schüle and Michelle Forbes. Treadstone debuts on USA Network in October.
