Today's News: Liam Neeson Taken once more

Here's a scoop I delivered to MovieScene:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/148151/liam_neeson_terug_voor_taken_3

Without having seen Taken or Taken 2 (and certainly in the latter case I know I have not missed much) I can quickly deduce this project to be a prime example of a studio doing some cash grabbing. The original Taken in itself was nothing more than a solid action thriller, as is typical for a Luc Besson production. A good cast, compelling action sequences, etc., but nothing more than an average action flick, released just before the 2008 blockbuster season kicked off, which is one of the reasons it did so well since cinemas didn't have that much else to offer. The second one was predictably more of the same, except of lesser quality. But apparently it still did wel enough despite a largely negative critical reception. And now there's Taken 3 in the works, making us wonder just how often one unlucky person can get involved with abductions of his own family without the feeling of the plot forcing the issue. But hey, Besson and co., never did care for plausibility. They do care for money, just as any commercially motivated film studio. And apparently they feel confident enough to hand Liam Neeson the big bucks for gracing the production with his presence, offering him a whopping 20 million dollars. It's an excessively large sum of money for one actor in any action vehicle, even if it's a third installment in a surprisingly successful franchise. Good for Neeson, but it does mean some cuts have to be made to protect the film from running rampant in the budget department. Expect the writing to suffer at least.

Still, 20 million dollars for Neeson isn't nearly as preposterous and insane as 50 million dollars for Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man 3. And we all know how "good" that movie's plot turned out to be...

And yes, I accidentally made a typo in the original news posting on MS. I know it's supposed to be 'rondt', I'm not an idiot.