In addition to talking about how his latest film, Colombiana, began as a sequel to the 1994 Luc Besson film, The Professional, director Olivier Megaton also chatted about another sequel he has coming up in Taken 2.
Megaton talked about approaching the sequel cautiously, as well as figuring out how to utilize star Liam Neeson, who even he admits was in a movie that was all too similar to Taken with the 2011 flick, Unknown.
While promoting Colombiana at the Los Angeles press day, Megaton said:
‘Taken’ is a really difficult project because it was a big surprise for everybody. When the movie was released in France, it didn’t work, and one year after in the U.S., it made a huge success. It was the same movie. So when you’re making ‘Taken 2,’ you have to think about all of this – why it worked, and how did this movie work in the U.S.
As everybody is waiting for the minimum, we have to be more clever, so Liam is going to be there like he was, but even better. But it’s a little tricky because Liam already did “˜Taken 2′ with “˜Unknown,’ even if it’s not the same story. It’s not far from the same kind of thing, with a secret agent; they took everything and tried to make this movie with it. But whatever.
The director also talked about LOST star Maggie Grace, who played Neeson’s kidnapped daughter in the first movie, and how her role will be much larger in the sequel and even inspired by the Zoe Saldana action of Megaton’s Colombiana.
The story is not the story you’re waiting for, because it’s totally different. Maggie has a huge, huge part in this movie, and then that was the really interesting thing.
The real challenge was to make her like Zoe in “˜Colombiana.’ I don’t want to be the specialist of girl action heroes, but that is the real point of me taking “˜Taken 2.’
But that doesn’t mean Neeson’s role will be minimized and Grace will be the one out there saving other kidnapped girls, as Megaton was asked:
No, I am not saying that. Liam Neeson will be very, very important in this movie. Liam will be all throughout the movie like he is – the same bad ass – and maybe a little more human. But Maggie will exist, because she was not really existing in the first one. She was the victim, so we were tracking her. But really she will be there in this one.
Do you want to see Taken 2?
[Source: The Playlist]
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