Paul Greengrass was just too loyal to his buddy Jason Bourne to direct a Bond movie

Certainly, that’s the easiest way to interpret a recent interview that the The Uprising director gave to the The Rest Is Classified podcast (per Deadline). Greengrass revealed that, shortly after he directed Supremacy, he was approached by the Bond team—still in the hands of the Broccoli family at the time—about whether he might not want to step in and direct a Bond movie. (Timeline-wise, there’s at least an odds-on chance this is Casino Royale; Martin Campbell wasn’t announced as director of Craig’s first Bond flick until a year after Bourne Supremacy hit theaters.) But Greengrass, despite having just taken the Bourne franchise over from Identity director Doug Liman, apparently already had his loyalties set. “It’s a bit like if you play for Manchester United,” Greengrass said, likening the rival franchises to soccer teams. “You can’t sign for Man City, you know? You wouldn’t feel right about that. You feel loyal. I do.”

Bond, of course, managed to muddle along without him, while Greengrass would go on to make two more Bourne movies, Ultimatum and Jason, in 2007 and 2016. And, honestly, that loyalty’s continued to be rewarded: He and star Matt Damon still continue to publicly pine for another one of these damn things, simply because they and their crew had such a good time together making the earlier films.