When Liam Neeson first read the script for Taken, he didn’t even expect it to make it into theaters: “I thought, ‘Well, this is going to go straight-to-video. A short little European thriller – it might play okay for a couple of weeks in France, and then it will go straight-to-video,’” the actor told Entertainment Weekly. Neeson didn’t expect to get anything more out of the project than a free trip to Paris and a little walking-around money, but it ended up revitalizing his career.
As it turned out, Neeson drastically underestimated the movie’s chances of success. Not only did it avoid a straight-to-video release; it went on to become one of the year’s biggest hits at the box office. With a worldwide haul of over $200 million, Taken was financially successful enough to launch a blockbuster franchise with two sequels.
It’s understandable that Neeson initially expected Taken to be a forgettable casualty of the bargain bin. On the surface, it’s a run-of-the-mill mid-budget action movie with little to separate it from any of the other thrillers getting pumped out by the Hollywood machine. But there are a few key factors that made Taken stand out amongst the crowd and become a surprising box office hit.
The masterfully simplistic plotting of Taken sees Neeson playing hard-as-nails ex-CIA agent Bryan Mills. His daughter Kim goes on a vacation to Paris with her friend and, within five minutes of being outside the United States, gets abducted by Albanian sex traffickers. Bryan’s CIA buddy gives him a 96-hour window to get over to Paris, find Kim, and bring her home before she disappears into the international sex trade and he’ll never see her again. The personal stakes and ticking-clock conflict make Taken a quintessential thriller.
Namely, what drew audiences’ attention to Taken was the novelty of Neeson playing an action hero. A standard kidnapping thriller starring Bruce Willis or Steven Seagal is unlikely to have blockbuster appeal because they make those kinds of movies all the time. Neeson, on the other hand, had never done action movies before – he was a respected dramatic actor. This wasn’t just a thriller about a father saving his kidnapped daughter; this was a thriller about Oskar Schindler saving his kidnapped daughter.
Of course, Neeson fit this role so well that it went on to completely reinvent his career. In the years since Taken hit theaters, he’s starred in such similar action thrillers as Non-Stop, Run All Night, and Cold Pursuit. The days of baiting Oscar voters with acclaimed dramas like Schindler’s List and Michael Collins are over. Now, Neeson’s legacy is marked by shootouts, fist fights, and explosions. The gimmick of Neeson playing an action hero brought attention to Taken, but the failure of some of Neeson’s subsequent action movies proves that this gimmick alone didn’t make it a hit.
Audiences love a good thriller, and Taken is a prime example of the genre. Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen’s fast-paced, no-nonsense script has minimum exposition and maximum action. The opening scenes efficiently establish everything the audience needs to know: Kim’s birthday party sets up how much Bryan cares about his daughter and his struggle for her attention in the shadow of an ultra-wealthy stepdad. The concert security scene introduces Bryan’s razor-sharp CIA instincts. Around the 25-minute mark, Kim is kidnapped, Bryan heads to Paris, and the rest of the movie is a relentless thrill ride.
On top of that, Taken is a story about a parent’s love for their child. It’s not about super-spies chasing a MacGuffin or a widespread government conspiracy or something equally unimaginable. It’s about the lengths that a father will go to in order to protect his daughter, which is universally relatable. The audience gets behind Bryan’s quest and wants him to succeed, because they know exactly what’s at stake.
Much like in the stock world, it’s impossible to predict box office success. It’s safe to assume that a Marvel superhero adventure will turn a profit, but the financial prospects of a movie are determined by so many different factors – word-of-mouth, disposable income, the current state of the zeitgeist, etc. – that surprises like Taken come along all the time. Both Jaws and Star Wars were expected to fail and they each went on to become the highest-grossing movie of all time. My Big Fat Greek Wedding could’ve been dismissed as a conventional rom-com, but it struck a chord with audiences and became a $300 million box office smash.
While there is no sure-fire formula for a box office hit, Taken does offer an interesting blueprint as a movie with a straight-to-DVD premise that became a blockbuster. Universal emotions like parental love will always resonate with audiences, and doing something new and exciting with a familiar star – like putting a gun in Liam Neeson’s hand – is a great way to grab moviegoers’ attention.