Tradecraft: Janssen and Grace Return for Taken 3; Forrest Whitaker Also Joins

Liam Neeson signed on last year to reprise his role as ex-CIA agent Bryan Mills in a third Taken movie; now Mills' wife and daughter are joining him. In separate stories, Deadline reports that Famke Janssen (GoldenEye) and Maggie Grace (Lockout) have closed deals for the threequel as well. If you're wondering which one of them gets taken this time, the answer might be neither. Bleeding Cool recently reported (via Dark Horizons) that Neeson himself told Jonathan Ross that "they called me up and I said 'I'll do it... but only as long as nobody gets taken.'" Apparently he wasn't kidding. He did promise, however, that neo-Eurospy maven Luc Besson and his series co-writer Robert Mark Kamen have concocted a "really, really good story." Whatever that story is, it apparently involves the addition of an acting heavyweight every bit Neeson's equal. Deadline reported in January that the great Forrest Whitaker (The Crying Game) is also in talks to join the returning gang. (My money would be on Whitaker as an antagonist.) The trade blog also reported that frequent Besson collaborator and Taken 2 helmer Olivier Megaton (Transporter 3, Colombiana) would return to direct Taken 3. It's too bad that Pierre Morel, who directed the excellent first movie, apparently couldn't be lured back to helm what Deadline claims will be the final film in the series. Morel has a much more impressive grasp of action filmmaking.