Pierre Morel’s follow up to the sleeper smash Taken is another Europacorp produced action machine. From Paris With Love stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers as an embassy worker and John Travolta as a spy, thrown together by some apparent misunderstanding and charged with smashing, crashing and all-round actioneering in order to thwart a terrorist threat in the French capital. Check out the trailer for yourself after the break.

I think the Europacorp action factory, which has produced everything from the original Taxi and its sequels through to the District 13 films, and typically with a script at least co-written by Luc Besson, is pretty dependable in delivering nice, solid b-movie style action shenanigans. Hopefully From Paris With Love will be no different. Besson is here credited as a co-writer alongside Adi Hasak, previously credited with George P. Cosmatos’ Shadow Conspiracy.

This trailer appears below.

Rhys Meyers is an unusual pick for this kind of thing, but I would have said the same about Liam Neeson before enjoying his running and jumping in Taken fully. Travolta seems very well employed here, in a role that plays to his strengths superbly. I’m hoping he has a little dance sequence too, as a cherry on the cheesecake.

Despite the James Bond reference in the title, I’m picking up on as much North By Northwest here (though admittedly, ‘as much’ is not so much).

Morel’s next picture looks to be his first studio engagement, taking on Pursuit for Universal. Peter reported on that one in July, telling us:

Pursuit is an action thriller is based on the early career on conflict photographer Jason Howe, who fell in love with a woman while on assignment in Columbia, only to later discover that she is an assassin for right-wing death squads. The studio is searching for a screenwriter for the project.

Beyond that, he’s also working on a fairly secret action film to be set in Tokyo and the inevitable Taken sequel. Bring ‘em on.