Briefly: Cinemax’s TV version of The Transporter took a big step this week when the two leads were cast. Chris Vance, perhaps best known in the states for roles on Prison Break, Dexter and Burn Notice, is the new ‘professional transporter’ Frank Martin, played in three big-screen outings by Jason Statham. And Andrea Osvart will play Carla, his handler, “an extremely crafty former CIA operative who organizes his missions, acts as his eyes and ears on the outside, and continually stokes the flames of their unrequited attraction.”
More interesting is that the same stunt team that did the Transporter films will be working on the series. So while the show might not have the budget of the films, it might at least be able to approximate the action. Luc Besson produces the series, which is set for 12 episodes at this point. It will shoot this summer and then hit Cinemax next year. [EW, Deadline]
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Olivier Megaton is set to direct Taken 2, but before that his movie Colombiana will be in theaters. The assassin/revenge film stars Zoe Saldana and is cut more from the La Femme Nikita and The Professional mold than the Taken template. Luc Besson‘s fingerprints are all over this one, and no wonder, given that he co-wrote with Robert Mark Kamen. Check out the trailer after the jump. Read More »
Briefly: The big drama surrounding Taken 2 was whether or not Liam Neeson would, in fact, return to be a badass former CIA agent whose daughter was once kidnapped. No one has really voiced much thought about the return of Maggie Grace, who played the object of Taken‘s title in the first place. But Deadline now confirms that Ms. Grace has finalized a deal to reprise her role as the daughter of Liam Neeson’s character. How does she fit into the story? Please just let us find out that she is kidnapped again; I want an entire series of these films in which Maggie Grace is kidnapped, leading to a My Dinner With Andre-style final sequel/coda where her character and Jack Bauer’s daughter sit down to vent and angrily tear apart lobsters at a fancy restaurant for 90 minutes.
Olivier Megaton, who has a name that is as badass as Liam Neeson’s character, will direct this sequel. He has already worked with producer Luc Besson more than once, most recently when he directed The Transporter 3. (Remember, too, that Maggie Grace is also in the ‘Taken in space’ movie Lockout, with Guy Pearce.)
Posted on Monday, March 7th, 2011 by Angie Han
We have the first image from A Monster in Paris, the Luc Besson-produced, Eric “Bibo” Bergeron-directed animated film due out in France later this year. Although posters and concept art for the movie have made the rounds before, this seems to be the first picture from the movie itself. The plot revolves around a monster terrorizing early 20th century Paris, and the locals who band together to stop him. But, as you might guess from the image, the monster isn’t exactly what he seems to be. See for yourself after the jump.
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This one just came out of nowhere. For the past few months there had been word that Luc Besson might be planning a new epic romance or a massive sci-fi film. But now he’s shooting The Lady, which is a film about Burmese democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Michelle Yeoh plays the cultural heroine, who opposed military rule in Burma and spent much of the past twenty years under house arrest as a result. David Thewlis plays her husband, Michael Aris. That’s the first image from the film, above, and there are more after the break. Read More »
Unless you’re a group of crime scene investigators or police detectives, there’s really not that much male-driven action currently on television. Luc Besson is hoping to change that in the coming months. Filming is set to being early next year on a $48 million, 12 part television series based on The Transporter. The films, which starred Jason Statham and were produced by Besson’s EuropaCorp, center on a driver who’ll transport anything you want, no questions asked. French company Lagardere Entertainment will finance the show and they, reportedly, already have a deal in place with a United States broadcaster.
EuropaCorp has already turned one of their franchises into a show, Nikita, and they aren’t stopping there. After The Transporter, they’re also considering turning the Liam Neeson action vehicle Taken into a TV series, but only after Taken 2 shoots in the Spring. Read more after the jump. Read More »
UPDATE: Variety reports that production has already wrapped in Thailand and the shoot is moving to London, after which two weeks’ work is scheduled in France. Original article follows.
While he’s spent much of the past decade working as a writer and producer, Luc Besson has directed a film here and there — the Arthur and the Invisibles movies, and The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec for example. Lately he seems to be ramping up interest in directing even more movies. There was word of him shopping around an expensive love story, and of the possibility of a film that would be like “The Fifth Element to the power of ten.”
For now, however, it seems like he’s focusing on something completely different. He’s reportedly making a film called Into the Light, which will be a biopic of Aung San Suu Kyi, starring Michelle Yeoh. Read More »
A young girl sees her family murdered by a drug lord, then grows up to be an assassin simply so she can get revenge. Yes, it’s the O-Ren Ishii story from Kill Bill but it’s also the plot of Colombiana, which stars Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek) as the assassin searching for vengeance as well as Michael Varitan. It’s co-written by Luc Besson (Leon: The Professional) and directed by Olivier Megaton (Transporter 3). Colombiana is scheduled for release September 2011 but some early looks of Saldana as her character Cataleya Restrepo are now online. Check them out after the jump. Read More »
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