New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

This will go into a few spoilers, so if you haven’t seen Taken then you better hurry up; a sequel is on the way!

Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is a former CIA agent, having retired in the hope of spending more time with his 17-year-old daughter Kim (Maggie Grace), who lives with her mother Lenore (Famke Janssen) and her wealthy stepfather Stuart (Xander Berkeley). Bryan meets Kim for lunch one day, where she asks her father’s permission to travel to Paris with her best friend Amanda (Katie Cassidy). Being under 18, she needs his permission to go abroad. He reluctantly agrees. Bryan calls Kim as soon as she and Amanda arrive at their apartment in Paris, but within a matter of minutes the girls are kidnapped. Using what information he can from the phone call, Bryan sets off to Paris to find his daughter.

Since the turn of the millennium, there have been a few similar kidnapping scenarios such as Along Came a Spider, Man on Fire and Firewall. With a production budget of $25 million, Taken cost considerably less than the aforementioned films. From the outset it looked like it would be a typical action shoot-em-up, yet it became a surprise $100 million+ domestic success. Written by Luc Besson, it was directed by Pierre Morel, who helmed the fantastic District 13.

Taken originally opened in France in February 2008. The following months saw the film released across parts of Europe, earning close to $70 million by the end of the year. The film’s US distributor, 20th Century Fox, had planned to open Taken in the US around September 2008. Oddly, they postponed it till January 30, 2009, opening over the Super Bowl weekend. According to Morel, one of the reasons for the delay was to recut the film for a PG-13 rating. In turn this led to people downloading it illegally. In an interview with Coming Soon, Morel said, “It’s almost a year later and it’s been downloaded all over the world. I think it’s one of the most illegally downloaded movies [of 2008], but there’s no way you can control that so far.” It’s difficult to determine just how much this affected the film’s box office takings, but interestingly those that had downloaded the film were posting on forums singing its praises. The positive comments would likely encourage anyone who was interested to view the film upon its release, or it would spur them on to download it themselves.

Taken surprised everyone by reaching #1 with an opening weekend take of $24.7 million (there was an expected dip on the Sunday). Even more surprising was that the film showed decent shaved legs, earning an additional $20.5 million on its second weekend. The unusual release strategy appeared to be paying off. On its third weekend it had a spectacular hold, earning $18.9 million. Taken spent nine weeks in the top ten and earned a total of $145 million during its entire run at the US box office. Overseas it earned $81 million, making for a total worldwide gross of $226 million.

According to 20th Century Fox, exit polling during its opening weekend indicated that 52% of the audience were male, and 60% were aged over 25. Having Liam Neeson in the lead would have helped contribute to the older generation making their way to the multiplexes, as well as those looking for a film that had a back to basics approach. “Just like the old days,” says French officer Jean-Claude when he meets with Bryan in Paris. It’s a somewhat knowing line that says more about the film, for it has an old-fashioned 1980s vibe to it, striving for realism with its lack of effects. But audiences were lured by more than just a star in his ‘50s unloading bullets into foreigners (I feel it’s worth noting that Taken’s domestic gross is higher than $103 million earned by The Expendables, which was released in 2010). The story itself would be the other explanation.

Continued:       1       2