Matt Damon walking on a Goa beach was not what filmgoers expected to see when they walked into city theatres to catch The Bourne Supremacy. There hadn?t been a word written or spoken about it during production, when the crew, including Damon (picture above with fans at the premiere of the film), was on location for an 11-day shoot. Neither had the film?s publicists gone to town about the India angle in the pre-release stage.

It was a pleasant surprise to catch glimpses of India?s best-known beaches, the Panjim airport, real roads, real shops, real people. It was woven into the story, just like the other foreign locales, as Jason Bourne, a ?retired? assassin, eluded the baddies. ?You want to go places and treat them like they?re your environment? so it?s not like we are in India, here?s the Taj Mahal. Everything is street level, everything is very familiar,? said writer Tony Gilroy.

Bourne had been with the Treadstone project ? a top-secret division of the CIA. He was trained as a killing machine, till he ?fell off the grid?. He was hiding from his past in Goa, with girlfriend Marie. The film ? the sequel to the 2002 blockbuster The Bourne Identity ? opens with unknown operatives trying to execute Bourne, but killing Marie instead. Their jeep plunges off a bridge and into a murky river. Bourne makes an escape and that is about the end of Indian screen space.

Goa was chosen over China, according to producer Frank Marshall, because of its popularity with young foreign tourists. ?It was one of those places on your radar in the late ?60s and early ?70s. Tony did a little research and found that a lot of Europeans were still coming there. To shoot for two weeks in India took us about six months of preparation ? and it was well worth it.?

The hard work resulted in the crew setting up headquarters at Sinquerim beach. With a fast-paced chase involving Damon, Franka Potente (Marie) and a Russian hit man played by Karl Urban, the schedule took them to Panjim. After that, base shifted to Canacona to capture Bourne and Marie at Palolem.

Among the production hazards were oxen, wild dogs and pigs. ?It was the first time in my career we actually had a herd of oxen break through the lockup. We had to stop shooting and wait for them to walk across a pretty long bridge. There was a guy with a stick walking behind them? apparently he can get them to go but he?s not really good at getting them to stop,? said stunt coordinator Dan Bradley.

Here?s hoping a few cattle ain?t enough to keep Hollywood at horns? length.