Taken director’s next

Is French filmmaker Pierre Morel on his way to becoming one of my favorite action directors? He certainly seems to be barreling down that path.

The Besson protege followed his fun futuristic parkour/martial arts flick BANLIEUE 13 (DISTRICT 13) with the pure vengeance of Liam Neeson in TAKEN, and he has the Travolta spy movie FROM PARIS WITH LOVE (which looks like a literal blast) awaiting release.

Up next (potentially) is an original project called SIGNALS, which is only described as a contemporary paranoia thriller in the tone of THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR (a personal all-time fave!) and is now on the fast-track.

He’s also eyeballing an action/espionage thriller set in Japan, and an action-thriller set in South America called PURSUIT. With all that action, it looks unlikely he’ll be the guy directing the proposed sequel to TAKEN (which made a massive $224 million worldwide).