Taken

Pierre Morel's Taken was produced by Luc Besson's EuropaCorp at Cité du Cinéma outside Paris. Besson and Robert Mark Kamen co-wrote the screenplay, with Morel — who had previously directed Besson's District 13 — handling direction. The film is technically a French production, despite its English-language script and largely American framing, and was nominated for Best Sound at the César Awards in 2009.

The film's production history is one of the most-discussed examples of unexpected international box-office breakouts in twenty-first-century commercial cinema. It opened modestly in France in early 2008, reached the United States in late January 2009 (against the typical winter dumping ground for genre films), and grossed over $226 million worldwide on a budget of approximately $25 million. It launched a complete reframing of Liam Neeson's career — until then known principally as a dramatic actor in Schindler's List, Michael Collins, Kinsey — into the late-career action-genre lead he has remained for the seventeen years since.

Two sequels followed (Taken 2 in 2012 with Olivier Megaton directing, Taken 3 in 2014 also with Megaton); a 2017 NBC series with Clive Standen as a younger version of Neeson's character ran for two seasons. The franchise has grossed over $930 million worldwide. Morel — having proven the EuropaCorp action template at scale — would go on to direct From Paris with Love, The Gunman and Peppermint within the same broad action-thriller register.