January is Hollywood’s dumping zone. Think your film is going to suck? Release it that month and at least you’ll have a good excuse for its poor performance. However, that wasn’t the case with the Sony film Taken. In fact, not only did it earn $24.7 million in its opening weekend, but it went on to take in a grand total of $226.8 million worldwide. Considering the film came together on a $25 million budget, that’s huge.
I have a hard time seeing it as a film with sequel potential, but when a film amasses such a high cash count, it’s inevitable. There’s been buzz about Taken 2 for quite awhile, but just recently, MTV got a brief update from the badass hero himself, Liam Neeson. When asked about the status of the next film, Neeson admitted it’s “hard to get a plot that will be believable.” You mean Bryan Mills’ daughter getting snatched up a second time isn’t plausible? Neeson added that he has plans to meet with writer Luc Besson later this month to talk about their options.
The idea of making a Taken 2 is still off-putting, but at least we know Neeson is well aware of the main problem. Yes, it’s fun to see the ex-CIA agent torturing and taking out bad guys, but he’s got to have a reason to do it and the whole rescue-your-daughter thing is already old news. Perhaps there’s someone higher in the food chain than Patrice Saint-Clair and he or she will want revenge for Mills destroying a serious source of cash in the Albanian human trafficking business.
Check out the video interview for yourself below.
By Perri Nemiroff