Matt Damon nearly turned down movies THE Bourne Supremacy and OCEAN'S TWELVE fearing the sequels wouldn't live up to the originals.

The Hollywood heart-throb, 33, feared the follow-up films were cynical money-making schemes by Hollywood executives and only accepted the roles when he was convinced they wouldn't disappoint him as a cinema lover.

Damon says, "I was pretty sure I wasn't going to do a follow-up. What I said was I didn't want to do it unless we could make it as good as the first one.

"There are so many sequels that are disappointing for me as a movie fan, and if I go to a sequel of a movie that I really like and I feel like it was made cynically, as a money grab by the studio, then I end up really resenting the studio and the film-makers.

"Plus it's just very hard to make a good sequel. I had a friend who said something really funny to me. He said, 'You have to be very careful with this sequel stuff.'

"'There have only been three sequels in history that are better than the original. The NEW TESTAMENT is better than the OLD TESTAMENT, HUCKLEBERRY FINN is better than TOM SAWYER and The Godfather: PART II is better than THE GODFATHER'."

06/08/2004 16:56