Liam Neeson’s Taken 3 is proving another win for the franchise, which rocketed the actor to fame as an older action star.
The $48 million action film, produced by Luc Besson’sEuropaCorp and distributed by Fox, topped the Friday box office with an impressive $14.7 million from 3,594 theaters, and will have no trouble claiming the North American box office crown with a weekend gross between $38.5 million and $40 million, putting it among the top January openings of all time.
The threequel unseats The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, which placed No. 1 for three straight weekends. Taken 3 won’t match the $49.5 million debut of Taken 2 in October 2012, but that film faced less competition.
The movie reteams Neeson with castmembersFamke Janssen and Maggie Grace, and introduces Forest Whitaker to the franchise. Olivier Megaton returns in the director’s chair, while Besson and Robert Mark Kamen once again wrote the script.
