When asked by Empire if there will be a Taken 3, Liam Neeson answered, “I don’t see it. I don’t think it’s going to happen. I really don’t. I can’t see a possible scenario where audiences wouldn’t go, ‘Oh, come on! She’s taken again?”
Fast forward two weeks and over $50 million later and Hollywood.com asks Taken 2 screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen the same question and he answered, “We didn’t start talking about [Taken 3] until we saw the numbers. But then we said, ‘Oh, okay. I think we should do a third one.’ And Fox wants us to do a third one.”
Since the release of the second, and truly awful, film there have been jokes online about what a third would be about. My favorite was someone saying something along the lines of, “The third one will just be a black screen with the words ‘You the audience have now been Taken.'” The only difference between that scenario and Taken 2 is the black screen, which I guess could be looked at as innovative.
In all seriousness, I wonder if audiences will rush to see a third one. Sure, the film made just shy of $50 million in its opening weekend and has amassed a whopping $122 million worldwide in its first four days of release, but do you really want to watch Liam Neeson hobble around the big screen yet again while his daughter blows up foreign cities with reckless abandon?
Of course, for anyone that has seen Taken 2, we already know the set up for the third film…
The two sons of the now-deceased Murad Krasniqi (Rade Serbedzija) will be hunting Byran Mills (Neeson) in America. The tagline will be something like, “Now the fight comes home,” or something having to do with “home” and “personal”.
The most likely situation will be Mills and his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) have rekindled their once lost flame and have remarried. He’s probably working a lowly security job and Kim (Maggie Grace) is heading off to college at the ripe age of 30, able to drive herself as she finally nailed that driver’s test.
With Kim out of the house and Lenore all alone, the two sons looking to exact revenge, hold Lenore hostage because killing her would be all-too-easy. The scene will play out something like this as we’ve attained an exclusive first look at the Taken 3 screenplay:
We didn’t kill her because we wanted to see your face when we slit her throat! [He laughs maniacally]
You do that and I promise your next breath will be your last.
I don’t think so.
Why is that?
Where is daughter… Bryan?
MILLS‘ eyes glaze over. Flashbacks of KIM waving as she heads off to DeVry University appear a blur. Concern is written all over his face. Not again!
What have you done with her?
Don’t worry, she’s quite safe. I can’t say same for boyfriend.
EVIL SON #1‘s cellphone chirps. He looks, raises his head halfway and stares at BRYAN with an evil gaze. His eyes laughing!
It’s for… you
He hands BRYAN the cellphone, it’s a video of KIM tied up, her boyfriend seemingly dead in front of her when a face appears on the screen.
Oh, hello! Good to see you, Bryan! Your daughter says… “Help me.”
BRYAN‘s face turns stern.
I know who you are. I know what you want. I offered to let your father live. He tried to kill me, so I smushed his head into a towel hanger. I am getting very old and would rather you just let her go. If you don’t, I must warn you. I have a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. They are not as finely tuned as they once were, but if I can guide my daughter through Istanbul with grenades and a map with circles on it I can certainly find you and find you I will, and I will kill you.
EVIL SON #1 takes back the phone.
You do realize you’re talking to a recording… right?
Oh man, it’s going to be epic! Word is Mills will have a rocket-propelled Rascal and has been training Lenore for the last few months, which is how they’re able to escape the predicament above and search the city for Kim.
They are still trying to figure out the ending, but it has something to do with spaceships, Chris Tucker and the comedian Gallagher. Oh, and Olivier Megaton is expected to return to direct. You in?
