The weekend saw Liam Neeson thriller ‘Taken 2’ take in $50 million from theatres across the United States and Canada alone, grabbing the number 1 spot on the box office charts. Globally, the movie raked in a healthy $117 million according to distributors 20th Century Fox.
‘Taken 2’ is the story of the kidnapping of a former CIA agent (played by Neeson); who is kidnapped while on a vacation in Istanbul. The original ‘Taken’ movie, released in 2009, did not earn as much in its first weekend as its sequel, opening at $24.7 million and finishing with $227 million globally. The ‘Taken’ series has boosted Liam’s career and has led to movies such as ‘Clash of the Titans’ and ‘The Grey’.
Apart from the top earner, ‘Hotel Transylvania’ was pushed to second place, earning $26.3 million and the number 3 slot was filled by comedy ‘pitch perfect’, raking in $14.7 million. Chris Aronson, executive vice president of domestic distribution at 20th Century Fox was surprised at the earnings and mentioned that it had exceeded their expectations of a mid 30 million earning for the weekend.
According to Aronson, the viewership for ‘Taken 2’ was split evenly across gender and ages, with even male-female ratios and more than half of total ‘Taken 2’ moviegoers over 25 years of age.
