Forest Whitaker is in talks to star alongside Liam Neeson and Maggie Grace for Taken 3.
Movement is escalating on Taken 3, the latest installment in the Luc Besson action franchise starring the dauntlessly dedicated father Liam Neeson.
According to Deadline Besson’s EuropaCorp, and likely returning distributor 20th Century Fox, are looking to sign director Olivier Megaton back onboard for Taken 3 after having already directed the second successful “Give me back my daughter” entry, Taken 2. However, as Megaton may be preparing to lens another project, the direction of negotiations is unclear. But what may interest fans more is that EuropaCorp is also talking with Forest Whitaker to join Neeson and Maggie Grace as a new lead for the Takenthreequel, a film for which Neeson is rumored to have been paid $20 million for participating in.
In the original Taken, Neeson played retired CIA fixer Bryan Mills, an estranged dad who ferociously fights to literally get closer to his daughter (Grace) when she is kidnapped by Euro-trash during her vacation to Paris. That film cost a mere $25 million and went on to gross $226 million worldwide. In Taken 2, the now happily reunited Mills family, including Bryan’s ex-wife (Famke Janssen), have their blissful vacation disrupted by the family of all the decomposing kidnappers Neeson left to rot in the first film. While the film was widely considered inferior to the Pierre Morel-directed original, it went on to gross $376 million worldwide. Neeson was paid around $15 million for that project.