After years of rumours and speculation, last year it was finally confirmed that Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon had agreed to return for a new Bourne movie. Nine months later, things are starting to feel a little more concrete now that the casting process is actually underway. A couple of weeks ago we heard that Julia Stiles had signed on to reprise her role as Nicky Parsons, an ally of Jason Bourne who appeared in all three previous films. We also heard that Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina) was being pursued for a major role and that Viggo Mortensen was circling the project. Well, we can now verify that Vikander is officially on board. Hit the jump for more details.

According to Deadline, Alicia Vikander has signed on to star in the Untitled Next Bourne Chapter for Universal Pictures and director Paul Greengrass. Due to scheduling issues, however, this means that she was forced to drop out of the Assassin’s Creed movie and also break off negotiations for the upcoming adaptation of Dave Eggers’ The Circle. Clearly her performance in Ex Machina turned a lot of heads and she also has roles in 4 or 5 other upcoming movies this year including Guy Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E..

As for Viggo Mortensen, Jeff Sneider reported on Twitter a couple of weeks ago that he was being courted to play the main villain and that an offer had already been made. We haven’t had any updates since then, but it would be interesting to see him in a big mainstream movie again. Over the past few years Mortensen has focused almost exclusively on smaller indie dramas and there’s no question that he could raise the potential of Bourne 5 considerably. Are you looking forward to the next Bourne movie?