An English movie has defied the usual norms of contemporary cinema. This hollywood flick which has an age old story about a girl getting kidnapped and how her father, an ex-government spy saves her, took almost 1 year to reach the US theatres after releasing in all the major countries like France, China, South korea and even United Kingdom. its getting a release almost 2 to 3 months after pirated DVDs was made available and the best print was available in torrents too. And to top it all there are no major boxoffice draw except for the always dependable Liam neeson. Would you be interested in going to the theaters to see this movie?
The movie which was expected to rake in almost $20 million on its first weekend and the final estimate of $40 to 45 million, projected by all the major box office analysts went on to gross $100 million so far and when the movie finishes its stint at the theaters it might well have reached something close to $130 million in US alone. Thrice the predicted final gross.
How did this happen? There are many analysts trying to reason the surprise performance of this action flick. The simplest analysis being that the US audience were hungry for an action thriller for a long time as the oscar probable dramas ruled the theatres for more than two months. But the most interesting one was that the audience paralleled the movie to to present US. The daughter being the country, who is helpless and is going down the drains thanks to the recession and her father, the president, Obama would risk anything to save her. At the end of all its just a movie about hope, something which the Americans need a lot now. The same factor which was instrumental in the tremendous response of 'Slumdog millionaire' which also broke the $100 million mark last week.
Whether Obama delivers or not, Liam neeson sure does and with style. And Taken is getting richer by the second and will also get itself a sequel in 2010. If the last analysis is to be believed then the producers of Taken would just love the recession to continue till then. Unless the father of US has something else in mind.
