‘Taken 3′ Is Going to Happen Now That Liam Neeson Has Been Offered Piles of Money

When 'Taken 2' was released, Liam Neeson spent a lot of time saying that he wasn't up for a third film as he felt another kidnapping incident that could lead to a sequel would be too ridiculous. But money changes everything -- Neeson was just offered a ridiculous sum to return and now 'Taken 3' is a go.

Deadline is reporting that Neeson has been offered around $20 million to appear in the third film, which made his objections to making it a trilogy go away. Funny how that works.That said, a third film has been in the planning stages for a while as screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen suggested that he's already working on it. He said last year that:

We didn’t start talking about [Taken 3] until we saw the numbers. But then we said, ‘Oh, okay. I think we should do a third one.' We’ve taken everyone we can take — it’s going to go in another direction. Should be interesting.”

2009's 'Taken' was a surprise hit and made $145 million domestically and over $200 million worldwide, while the sequel grossed nearly $140 million domestically and $376 million worldwide. Even if the story is stupid, the audience is there so it makes sense to pay Neeson a truckload of cash for the sequel. Which they have. Currently the project has no director, while both Maggie Grace and Famke Janssen will be in talks to return shortly.