USA’s ‘Treadstone’ Is ‘Its Own Complete Story’ Within the Bourne Universe

Jim Halterman September 10, 2019, 4:00 pm

The first thing to know about this international action drama, inspired by Robert Ludlum’s novels, is, yes, it’s within “the same world [where] Jason Bourne exists,” says executive producer Ben Smith.

The second thing: “Treadstone is its own complete story,” Smith adds, and Matt Damon, who played the rogue agent in four movies, doesn’t appear.

Fans of the franchise will learn the origins of the CIA’s black-ops organization after highly skilled sleeper agents — like Doug McKenna (Sense8‘s Brian J. Smith), who’s been working on an oil rig in the Arctic Ocean — are “woken” under Treadstone’s control to perform various missions.

'Treadstone': Meet the Cast of USA's 'Bourne' Universe Series (PHOTOS)

McKenna is just one of the highly trained human weapons we meet in the present day — in a 1973 timeline, John Randolph Bentley (Jeremy Irvine, above) is another — as the action follows agents around the globe. (The series filmed in Paris, London, Budapest, Berlin, Greece, and Amsterdam.)

“Everybody has a different narrative and a reason they’re doing what they’re doing, with varying moral compasses,” adds Smith. And who is Treadstone’s puppet master pulling the strings? Smith teases: “That’s the question!”