Taken 2 took* the US box office by storm over the weekend, soaring to the top spot with just shy of $50m., surpassing its budget in three days in the States alone.
We interviewed Liam Neeson earlier in the month, who said that he expected Taken 2 to be the last in the franchise, but now an interview with writer, Robert Mark Kamen, has revealed that the studio doesn’t feel the same way, seeing the numbers over the weekend:
“We didn’t start talking about [Taken 3] until we saw the numbers,” says Kamen. “But then we said, ‘Oh, okay. I think we should do a third one.’ And Fox wants us to do a third one.”
Of course, that begs the question as to where a third film would go. The original saw Maggie Grace, who plays Neeson’s daughter, get taken. The sequel sees Neeson and his wife, Famke Janssen, get taken. As Kamen says,
“We’ve taken everyone we can take — it’s going to go in another direction. Should be interesting.”
Our review of the film – which you can read here – wasn’t exactly enthused by it, bearing just a single star, but naturally, fans of the original have driven out in their masses, and with the first film becoming such a cult favourite in the years since its theatrical release, it’s not surprising that the opening weekend numbers were quite so high.
In recent memory, the best franchise that has successfully spawned a new direction is Fast & Furious. The fourth and fifth films have all the elements of the original, but have turned things into a heist/action, adrenaline-fuelled ride.
The Hangover Part III is also set to rework the original formula, which was pretty much repeated verbatim (albeit, executed very well) in the sequel.
So where exactly would Taken 3 go? At the moment, we can only speculate. Presumably someone has to get taken.
One possibility could be that it will be someone like the president’s daughter (à la, Lockout, which Besson co-wrote and Maggie Grace starred in), thus needing Neeson’s unique talents brought in on a bigger scale. Time will tell.
For the moment, Taken 3 doesn’t have the official green light; Neeson would need to be brought on board after initially thinking the series complete, and of course Besson and Kamen would need to write the script. But it sounds like Fox are keen to move forward with the third film, and it wouldn’t be at all surprising to hear some concrete confirmation on this in the near future. More as we get it.
*No pun intended.
Source: Hollywood.com.
