Taken Returns.....As A Prequel Series.....

[Mitch Henessey]

“Taken” is heading to the small screen, as NBC has handed a straight-to-series order on a prequel adaptation of the popular action movies, which starred Liam Neeson, Variety has confirmed.

The TV show hails from Luc Besson, who wrote the original feature franchise, and search for a writer and showrunner is underway. At this point, Neeson is not involved in the project.

The series will follow a young Bryan Mills (the character played by Neeson in the three flicks) who has no wife and kids, opposed to the movies in which his wife and daughter are kidnapped. The show, first reported by Deadline, will focus on how Mills acquires his expert skills that enabled him to become the character known to audiences today. The logline pays homage to the first film’s famous quote: “What I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career; Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.”

The “Taken” prequel hails from Universal TV and Besson’s EuropaCorp. Besson will exec produce, along with Matthew Gross, Edouard de Vesinne and Thomas Anargyros of EuropaCorp.

“Taken” first premiered in 2008, and was a surprise box-office hit, resulting in two sequel series in 2012 and 2014. The franchise turned Neeson into a favorite action star.

http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/taken-television-series-liam-neeson-nbc-luc-besson-1201596361/

Taken has a strong enough fan following to justify a TV series, and I don't think you'll run into too many "Liam Neeson is irreplaceable as Bryan Mills" problems or complaints. Of course, Neeson did a good job with the character, but the Taken series only has three films, so it's not like we're past a point, where it's impossible to picture anyone else playing Mills.

As far as the film series goes, it looks like Taken 3 is the end of the line. The movie grossed over $325,000,000 (and that's off of a reported production budget of $48,000,000) at the box office, and I remember reading a report about Neeson being open to a fourth film, if the fans are up for it. I enjoyed Taken 3 as another sequel in the series, but that's one of my main problems with the movie. Taken 3 (they used "It ends here" as a tagline to promote the film) was supposed to be the big grand finale, but after everything was over, I just had the feeling of watching another interchangeable sequel.

Still, it's kind of hard to ignore the fact Neeson is 63, and in a recent interview, he said he'll stop making action movies altogether in a few years.

Is anyone interested in Taken as a TV series?

 

[Kodo Sawaki]

Is anyone interested in Taken as a TV series?

In most cases it does not end up well. "Scream" is kinda good, but last night watched "Minority Report" and its kinda bad. I know that Hollywood has a tendency to run out of ideas so they just make remakes, reboots, movies to series etc but just dont think we need another "Taken" yet alone series based on it.

 

[Hyorinmaru]

17 months after Mitch posted this I've finally seen commercials for it recently and it looks alright.

I love all 3 movies so I'm willing to give it a chance but I'm afraid they'll screw it up like most movie to small screen adaptations.

Only time will tell if it's any good

 

[Mitch Henessey]

I caught most of this last night, and I know it's just the pilot, but so far Taken as a series isn't doing anything for me.

The overly serious tone and the brooding style makes Taken look like any random spy/thriller drama. I know they're going with an origin story, but the Taken films were basically fun action popcorn flicks, with ludicrous plot points and developments throughout all three films. I wasn't a fan of the From Dusk Till Dawn series at first, but they managed to capture the spirit of the movie (for the most part). The show finally started to form its own identity, when they broke away form the mold of the movie, and I still need to catch up to the second half of season 2 and the season 3, but From Dusk To Till Dawn: The Series is a fun show, if you're a fan of the movie (ignoring the shitty sequel and the prequel).

Maybe the same thing will happen with Taken at some point, but with the way things are going now, I just see another forgettable spy/thriller drama series that's using the Taken name to lure in fans of the movies.