Just under a week ago, we reported that Angelina Jolie was in talks to join Luc Besson’s next movie. And while she isn’t even 100% sure she will be signing on, we do know that she is the current frontrunner to star in Besson’s next dramatic-thriller with true science scientific elements. That’s how secretive it is, we don’t even know what the movie is about, just that the premise is science related. Now comes word, from Deadline, that Universal has just bought the rights to distribute the film.

Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp will co-finance along with the major studio, with plans to shoot sometime in 2012. According to the report, this would be Jolie’s next film as an actress, before before she teams with director Ridley Scott on a historical epic about Gertrude Bell. She will move on the Maleficent, the Linda Woolverton-scripted revisionist take on the Sleeping Beauty tale for Walt Disney Pictures, and she is getting closer to playing medical examiner Kay Scarpetta in the Fox 2000 drama based on the Patricia Cornwell novel series.

But her final 2011 feature will be her directorial and screenwriting debut. In the Land of Blood and Honey will be released later this month, just in time for an Oscar qualifying run, before it opens in wide release.

After helming this year’s In The Land of Blood and Honey, her debut as a director, Angelina Jolie is already lining up for her next project. But this time as an actress. According to Deadline, Jolie will be joining Luc Besson’s untitled thriller, the film would be Jolie’s next as an actress, and it would come before she teams with director Ridley Scott on a historical epic about Gertrude Bell that The Constant Gardener scribe Jeffrey Caine is currently rewriting. The report adds that the untitled thriller would be scientific-based.

The actress’ hasn’t appeared in to many movies this year, having performed in last year’s The Tourist and lending her voice for Kung Fu Panda 2. The actress She’s expected to act in the Besson project before teaming with Ridley Scott for a biopic on Gertrude Bell. The report adds that Besson’s EuropaCorp developed it and will co-finance, and negotiations are already underway with a studio for domestic distribution.

With the movie shrouded in mystery, what can we expect from the Besson and Jolie team up? Well Besson has directed The Professional, La Femme Nikita, and The Fifth Element and with titles like those under Besson’s name, its hard to think of a reason not to join. What kind of scientific elements can we expect in the movie though? That little detail seems very broad, so it could mean anything.

Luke Grimes Joins the cast of Taken 2

Brothers and Sisters star, Luke Grimes has joined the cast of Taken 2. Variety reports that he will play a key role in the action sequel that already stars Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace and Famke Janssen. Grimes will play Grace’s love interest, who will help her play a role in rescuing her parents.

In Taken 2 Neeson’s character Bryan Mills and his ex-wife (Famke Janssen) are being held hostage by the father of a kidnapper Mills killed while rescuing his daughter in the first film. Rade Serbedzija has been cast as the vengeful villain.

Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen wrote the script, which Besson will produce under his EuropaCorp banner. The original film grossed $226 million worldwide, making it a surprise hit. Taken 2 is slated for release on Oct. 5, 2012.

What are your thoughts on the casting and the plot details? Does it sound like a good sequel story.

A new trailer for Luc Besson’s biopic The Lady, starring Michelle Yeoh as the Burmese opposition politician Aung San Suu Kyi, has debuted online and it is a must watch. Also starring in The Lady is David Thewlis who will play has her husband, Dr. Michael Aris. Besson is known for his action fare like The Transporter films and his most recent Colombiana, but he isn’t known for his dramatic films. So this is an interesting choice from the director. But by the looks of this trailer, The Lady could be up for some major awards. You can check out the trailer below.

To be honest, I never expected this from Besson. As I have said, he is generally known for his action movies, but by looking at this I can see he is trying to expand his horizons.

The story of Aung San Suu Kyi, the woman who is at the core of Burma’s democracy movement, and her husband, Michael Aris. Despite distance, long separations, and a dangerously hostile regime, their love endures until the very end.

So I continue to write this column around news that comes up and earlier today I read a story about Liam Neeson and Luc Besson meeting to talk about a possible Taken sequel. Immediately my brain started turning on ideas for a return of Neeson’s character, Bryan Mills and thought I should write them down in this column. Who knows maybe Besson and Neeson will read this before their meeting in a month.

Obviously you have to start with what worked about the first movie and build on that in the second film. The good stuff was Neeson’s conviction as a dad who would stop at nothing to get his daughter back and the emotion and raw pain that comes with that journey. The movie built towards something and had cool actiony things happening a long the way. The premise and core of the next movie needs to make sure it doesn’t lose that about Neeson’s character or the plot.

I think the following three ideas are the best to keep those elements while making a new and satisfying story.

Idea # 1 – The Brazilan Job -I have always had a fascination for Brazil, the soccer, the heat, the bikini waxes, the millions of people. It seems like the perfect back drop for another jaunt Mills will have to sift through to find a loved one. Not to mention it seems far more challenging to go through Rio De Jinero than Paris to find someone you care about. Now my gut tells me to put his daughter into another kidnapping situation but you would think his daughter would never leave the country again and carry a gun of some sorts always on alert after the mini hell she was just involved in.

So here is my idea to make this work in an interesting way. Obviously to keep the heart of the movie is to build more on the father’s love for his daughter scenario. If you wanted to have Maggie Grace part of the movie again and be the focus with that theme in mind then the only way I think of it being different this time around is to have her kidnapped by someone Bryan knows, an old contact, organization or someone from his past. The kidnapping is premeditated in a revenge scheme for something Mills did in his past.

My argument for having Bryan’s past catch up with him is that being a sequel you have an opportunity to build on the character’s backstory. Not to mention you build towards something like in the first movie, it explains very easily how the same girl is kidnapped twice and it not being the fact she is unlucky.

Idea # 2 – Taken Meets the Bodyguard - What if Bryan continues his moonlighting as a bodyguard for high profile singers. In this story idea he has to race against time much like in the first film to retrieve a client that has been ‘taken”. You have it set in a new country maybe Russia, Spain, something like that. The girl kidnapped is the pop singer introduced in the first movie. The one person she would know to call before getting taken would be Brian since he has already saved her life.

Idea # 3 – A Mexican Stand-Off - I think another interesting idea is to take Bryan to the dangerous realm of the Mexican-American Border. The current immigration issues as a backdrop, you read all the time of people getting kidnapped for ransom, beheadings taking place, etc. The same concept I wrote about in idea # 1 could be applied or and here is a twist, what if he gets kidnapped? He is the one “taken” and the whole movie he has to use his skills to get free and find his way home while protecting another kidnapped victim and return to his daughter and new wife possibly before they are next on the kidnappers list.

I know what you thinking how could Bryan let himself get kidnapped? Well a clever enough writer can figure that out. Even Bond got caught every once in while. The key is to make the villain bad enough and believable enough on how they kidnap him, their motivations and lastly their ability to contain someone that skilled down for a 2 hour movie.

Everyone knows that last year one of my favorite films was the action kidnapping epic, Taken, which starred Liam Neeson. The movie was a small film that Luc Besson wrote and had his protege Pierre Morel direct. It wasn’t until Fox picked up and decided to distribute the movie when it became a global success.

I love the movie and could watch it every weekend. For me the film’s plot along with Neeson’s conviction and badassness made the movie.

MTV recently spoke to Neeson as he was promoting The A-Team, and he said he’s meeting with Besson later this month to talk about the sequel. The big hurdle right now, according to the actor is “hard to get a plot that will be believable.”

i love the first movie but how believable was that film? I think in the context is how to make a sequel that is believable as a sequel to the first one. You just can’t have his daughter getting kidnapped again. I like to think his ex-wife maybe might be an interesting story but don’t most people have the fantasy their ex would get kidnapped.

I have some ideas and will write about them in my next issue of The Pitch. Meanwhile I say, yes, to a sequel of Taken and further adventures of Neeson kicking some ass.

This has been a very busy film news day. So busy there was some stories that made the typical below the fold, meaning they didn’t deserve individual time consuming posts but we thought you should read them.

First up, writer/director, Chase Palmer will be rewriting the script for Dune that Pierre Morel is directing for Paramount. Morel came aboard the project at the beginning of 2010 after Peter Berg left. Palmer plans to work Morel’s ideas into initial writer Josh Zetumer’s screenplay. Morel has come out and said that he plans on staying close to Frank Herbert’s classic 1965 sci-fi novel.

Secondly, eRc Box Office is reporting that The Losers will move to a summer release slot on June 4 instead of opening on April 9.

In world news, Luc Besson and his Europa Corp film are heading out of this world for his new new sci-fi film entitled Section 8. The film takes place in a prison that orbits 50 miles above the earth and is home to 500 of the most dangerous criminals on the planet. The prisoners are put to sleep with new technology until they all suddenly wake up. The film will be the directorial debuts St. Leger, a commercial director, and James Mather, a cinematographer, who gained noticed in directing the short film Prey Alone. The co-wrote the film with Besson.

I wouldn’t be below the fold if crap like Twilight didn’t make the stories.

Now Deadline Hollywood Daily is reporting that Summit Entertainment will indeed split The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn into two films. Guess they took a cue from Warner Brothers and Harry Potter, which is splitting the last book into 2 movies.

Last but not least, one our below the fold stories revolves around Roland Emmerich’s latest film which has been pushed forward due to the technology behind Avatar.

MTV Movies Blog recently spoke with Emmerich, who revealed that his upcoming Issac Asimov adaptation Foundation will be done in 3D.

“The Avatar technology applies to Foundation,” Emmerich said. “It has to be done all CG because I would not know how to shoot this thing in real.”

Emmerich added that the film will use motion-capture technology along with 3D technology.

“Probably now all big movies have to be 3-D,” he said. “It’s not only the effect of 3-D, [Avatar has] just shown that if you do a movie in 3-D, you can ask for more money and that’s the trick. I think now everybody who does bigger movies has to shoot them in 3-D. I think there’s no way around it. I was on the set of Avatar and I saw how it worked and I really thought, ‘That’s the ultimate way of making movies.”

Photographer Jason Howe

One of our favorite movies this year is Taken and its director, Pierre Morel a disciple of Luc Besson, is now getting some new projects over hear in the states. One of the projects is Pursuit. This film will look at the early career of Jason Howe, a conflict photographer who started a relationship with a woman while he was in Colombia. Later, he finds out that she’s an assassin.

The life rights of Howe have been picked up for this project.

“Aside from the d.p. and camerawork, I have been shooting still photography since I was a kid and have been fascinated by the reportage in war zones,” stated Morel. “If I’d been courageous enough, I might have done that myself. There is the sentimental side of a man in love, and a journalist trying not to become involved in the story he is covering.”

Luc Besson is not involved in the project but that he and Morel are currently working on a sequel to Taken but are “taking their time.”

Pursuit sounds like an interesting movie. There is only one girl I can think of that would play a great assassin and lover and that is Angelina Jolie. This is project that surely seems interesting and quite different in terms of the gender roles flipped. Can’t wait to hear more as Morel is a director right now to pay attention too.

“I don’t know you who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you’re looking for a ransom, I can tell you, I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills acquired over a very long career in the shadows, skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that will be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you. And I will kill you.”

Those haunting words will be spoken on the screens of American cinemas this weekend as one the most highly buzzed films of 2008 finally gets its debut here in the states with a January 30, 2009 release.

Liam Neeson plays Brian Mills a former government operative, who is using his former skills to begin the longest 96-hours of his life – and the hunt for those responsible for taking his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace).

Bryan’s worst fears as a father are realized when Kim and her friend Amanda are suddenly abducted – in broad daylight – from the Paris apartment at which they’ve just arrived. Moments before Kim is dragged away by the as yet unseen and unknown assailants, she manages to phone Bryan, who begins to make the aforementioned promise to the kidnappers. Taken takes us to the darkness of Paris’s underworld, and to the City of Light’s plushest mansions. There Bryan will face nightmares worse than anything he has experienced in his career in black ops – and let nothing and no one stop him from saving his daughter.

Here is the one sheet and trailer for the latest Liam Neeson film, Taken. The film revolves around a former spy Bryan ( Liam Neeson) who relies on his old skills to save his estranged daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace – from LOST), who has been kidnapped and forced into the slave trade. The film also stars Famke Janssen, Xander Berkelyy and Leland Orser.

The film is scheduled to be released September 19, 2008 and is directed by Pierre Morel and written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen.

I have to say the movie looks pretty badass! I like films where you see someone who will do what it takes to protect their family. John McClane was good at it and so was Jack Ryan. I like the idea of Neeson’s character being a retired spy and having to use his skills to get his daughter back. In the trailer the scene where he says, “Let them take you!” is awesome! Looks like a good movie and will be a good addition to the spy/suspense thrillers coming this fall throughout September to November. Oh yeah and Luc Besson writing it can’t be a bad thing either.

Jason Statham will reprise his role as mercenary driver/delivery man Frank inTransporter 3 the next installment in EuropaCorp’s shoot-’em-up franchise.He will reteam with co-star Francois Berleand, while Robert Knepper (“Prison Break”) has joined the cast.

However, Louis Leterrier, who helmed the first two pics, has been replaced by Olivier Megaton (“Exit,” “The Red Siren”), who was second-unit director on EuropaCorp’s “Hitman.”

Pic, which will be produced by EuropaCorp principal Luc Besson and Steve Chasman, will shoot for 16 weeks in Russia and France.

The first two films in the series, which kicked off in 2002, were written by Besson and Robert Mark Kamen.

With worldwide box office returns of more than $130 million for the franchise, “Transporter 3″ continues EuropaCorp’s move into films with broader international potential.

Source: Variety