There's one person at least who doesn't mind being followed by Jason Bourne – Matt Damon.

The actor who is playing the rogue government assassin for the first time since 2007 says in a new behind-the-scenes featurette released on Tuesday that he loves making Bourne movies and considers it "a defining role".

Damon first played him in Doug Liman's​ The Bourne Identity in 2002, with the spy thriller series based on Robert Ludlum's​ novels going on to make $US1.2 billion at the worldwide box office.

"Every airport I'm in or every time I'm walking down a street and somebody stops me, that's the first question: are you going to do another one of those Bourne movies," Damon says in the featurette promoting Jason Bourne's release in July.

With Julia Stiles also returning, Bourne is on the run amid a hacking plot that could be "worse than Snowden" and wrestling with his continuing identity crisis.

On the run: Matt Damon and Julia Stiles in Jason Bourne.

Tommy Lee Jones plays a CIA boss who tells Bourne: "You never going to find any peace. Not till you admit to yourself who you really are."

Director Paul Greengrass, also returning to the series after shooting The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), describes the new movie as being "like a rock band coming back together for a good old tour."

"There's a reason for the CIA to want to bring him back. He's called the hundred million dollar weapon."

There's also a reason Universal Pictures wants him back.

In Tony Gilroy's The Bourne Legacy (2012), Jeremy Renner's new agent proved to be a weapon worth a bit less than Damon's.

While movie did better around the world, it's box office of $US113 million in North America was the lowest of the Bourne movies.

Damon has told Variety that the time lapse has helped to put a fresh spin on the Bourne story. "Paul and I kind of talked years ago about perhaps the way forward was just to let time pass and allow the world to change a little.

"Technically when the Bourne character disappears, it's still 2004. So when this next one comes out in '16, it will have been 12 years – in movie years – that the character as been off the grid. So what's happened in those intervening years gives you a story."

Back in action: Matt Damon in Jason Bourne.

According to Damon in the featurette, the new movie promises revelations.

"This time he gets all the answers to that original question of identity so that's really, really exciting," he says.

How do you think the new movie shapes up? Will fans relish seeing Matt Damon back? And how much life is there in the Bourne series? Let us know in the comments.