Historically, when a person reached age 70, they were often well into retirement, playing shuffleboard and having dinner at 3:30 in the afternoon. Those days, however, are long gone. Liam Neeson exemplifies just how drastically our world has changed. He is approaching his seventh decade on earth and is preparing to star in another action film in a franchise that represented a significant career move. In the most recent Giant Freakin Robot exclusive from a reliable source, Liam Neeson will star in Taken 4 with yet another quest to rescue someone who has been, well, taken.
Even though there are little details about how Taken 4 will unfold, any film student can draw reasonable assumptions about the film’s plot. Bryan Mills, the ex-CIA agent whose daughter was kidnapped during a disastrous trip to France, is almost certainly going to have another adventure in his life. Mills has had a difficult few years since his daughter’s abduction. Since then, the first three films have essentially been a rollercoaster of abductions, framings, and murders. Creatively, Luc Besson authored and produced all three of the initial movie. The first film was directed by Pierre Morel, while Olivier Megaton directed the second and third.
And at this point, it is anticipated that Taken 4 will talk to and market to its core demographic, which does not precisely include reviewers. After everything was said and done, the first three films grossed about a billion dollars at the box office, outperforming their production budgets by a significant margin. With a budget of over $118 million, it’s easy to see why the studio would like to have another of these pictures before everything is said and done.
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There won’t be any Taken 4, Because…
Every movie is making less and less money
Studios are more than willing to disregard negative reviews if a film earns a substantial sum at the box office. But when audiences tune out, there is a significant issue. The first instalment of Taken grossed $226.8 million worldwide, with the great majority ($145 million) coming from North American theatres. While the sequel’s international gross increased, its domestic gross decreased marginally. Only $139 million of Taken 2’s overall gross of $376,1 million was earned domestically.
Unfortunately, Taken 3 performed poorly. North America contributed only $89 million to its total revenue of $326.5 million. Even while the series appears to be performing well abroad, its domestic gross has steadily decreased. 20th Century Fox, perhaps realising that a fourth Taken film was out of the question, chose instead for a prequel television series.
Out of Story
Every picture, even a sequel, requires a plot, and when a franchise rests on the same character being abducted repeatedly, there is little possibility for expansion. Neeson, realising this, does not anticipate a fourth instalment of Taken.
Neeson stated on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2016 that there is currently no possibility of another Taken film being produced. “Your daughter can only be abducted so many times,” he pointed out. After breaking so many skulls in pursuit of his kidnapped offspring, he joked that his character would have to beg the kidnappers to take his daughter.
Kim, Bryan Mills’ 17-year-old daughter, was kidnapped while on vacation in France in the first film. In the second episode of the series, the families of the kidnappers exact revenge on Mills by capturing his wife Lenore and attempting to steal his daughter once more. The third film takes a different approach, with Bryan attempting to clear his name following the murder of his wife, as both Kim and Lenny were already taken.
What else is there to do at this juncture?
Taken TV series cancelled after 2 seasons
In 2017, both The Transporter and Taken were adapted into television series. Clive Standen was cast as Bryan Mills, with the programme serving as an origin tale for the character from the films despite both being set in the present day. The show depicts Mills pursuing vengeance for his sister’s death and his CIA career.
As the first season of Taken continued, the show’s ratings rapidly fell. A new showrunner was hired for the second season, which served as a semi-reboot and eliminated the majority of the ensemble, retaining only Standen and co-star Jennifer Beals (Swamp Thing). Despite this new beginning, ratings continue to decline, and the show was cancelled after two seasons.
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