After a much needed break, Liam Neeson will be back to make criminals rethink their career choices.
Luc Besson has been putting together plans for a sequel to “Taken,” the surprise 2008 hit he co-wrote that starred a surprisingly deadly Liam Neeson (and I mean that in a good way) as a retired CIA agent who turns out to be a kidnapper’s worst nightmare. Besson planned to reteam with Robert Mark Kamen, who wrote the original with him, and was in talks to have Olivier Megaton direct. There was one problem, though: Neeson insisted he was done.
Well, I guess anyone can be talked into anything, because now Deadline is reporting that Neeson has indeed agreed to star in what is called (hopefully just temporarily) “Taken 2.” Turns out he really just needed a break–he’s been filming pretty much nonstop since “Taken”; he’s done “The A-Team,” “Clash of the Titans,” “The Grey,” “Battleship,” and is currently filming “Clash of the Titans 2″ (“Wrath of the Titans” I believe?), with a cameo in “The Hangover 2″ thrown in along the way. So he finally worked out a plan with Besson where “Taken 2″ won’t start until the end of this year or early 2012, so he can take the rest of the year off.
Did Besson really have any other option? If they tried recasting or doing it with a new character, then they might as well have just labeled the production “straight to video.”
