Opening this weekend is director Olivier Megaton‘s Taken 2.  In the sequel, Liam Neeson’s character unwisely takes his family on a European vacation, only to find himself and his wife (Famke Janssen) taken hostage by the family members of the henchmen that Neeson brutally murdered in the first film.  The film also stars Maggie Grace and Rade Serbedzija. For more on the film, here’s four clips and all our previous coverage.

Last week in New York City I got to sit down with Neeson for an exclusive interview.  We talked about whether he was hesitant to do a sequel, what it was like to film in Istanbul, whether the script changed during production, and more.  In addition, we also talked about what it was like to host Saturday Night Live, how he was unclear regarding the nature of his role in The Dark Knight Rises or if he’d even make the final cut, whether he’ll work again with Joe Carnahan and if he knows anything about Mark Millar‘s Nemesis.  He also talked playing an air marshal in director Jaume Collet-Serra‘s upcoming action film Non-Stop, which is being produced by Joel Silver.  Hit the jump to watch.

With director Joe Carnahan’s (Narc, Smokin’ Aces, and The A-Team) awesome survival-action flick The Grey now playing, I recently got the chance to talk with the cast and Carnahan about making the movie.  Starring Liam Neeson, Dallas Roberts, James Badge Dale, Dermot Mulroney, Frank Grillo, Nonso Anozie, and Joe Anderson, The Grey is about a group of oilmen who have crash landed in the hunting zone of a rogue pack of wolves in the Alaskan tundra.  If you’re a fan of the cast, Carnahan, or just well made movies, The Grey will not disappoint.

During the press junket I got to talk to Carnahan twice. The first time was just about making The Grey.  However, when we spoke the second time, we talked about deleted scenes, what his friends and family screening told him about the movie (especially what he learned from Warrior director Gavin O’Connor), why Liam Neeson is a great action star, what’s up with Mark Millar‘s Nemesis (and how Neeson would be a perfect Blake Morrow), Killing Pablo, and reveals that he’d written the opening of the The A-Team Sequel that he planned had the first film done better commercially.  Hit the jump to watch.

After 2010’s feature film adaptation of The A-Team, director Joe Carnahan is back on the scene with his action-survival flick The Grey. The pic is garnering some pretty great advanced buzz, especially for the bad-assnes of star Liam Neeson, and Steve recently sat down with the director to talk about the film. While we’ll have the full interview up soon, we wanted to share a few interesting tidbits that Carnahan revealed regarding a couple of his upcoming projects.

The director spoke a bit about his adaptation of Mark Millar’s comic Nemesis, revealing that he and Millar have talked about the possibility of Neeson playing Blake Morrow in the pic. Additionally, Carnahan spoke at length about his Pablo Escobar epic Killing Pablo, saying that it’s the film he hopes to make next. The director also talked about dropping out of Umbra, the happy coincidence of The A-Team not being a big hit, and more. Hit the jump to see what he had to say.

Director Fernando Meirelles has yet to match his 2002 breakthrough film City of God, but he’s cranked out some quality films since with The Constant Gardener and Blindness.  While I found his latest film, 360, to be incredibly disappointing, Meirelles is already looking to his next film: a biopic of Aristotle Onassis, the controversial shipping magnate who married JFK’s widow Jackie in 1968.  As we reported back in April, Meirelles sees the film as “a sort of Godfather, with Onassis at the center.”  The film is based on the Peter Evans book Nemesis and Meirelles says he plans to start shooting sometime next year.

Hit the jump for some encouraging words from the Brazilian director on why his next film will be like his breakthrough film as well as details on distribution for 360.

As far as Hollywood is concerned, Mark Millar is the comic writer of the moment.  Features based on his Kick-Ass and Wanted have turned a head or two (and inspired sequels), and Millar is even hoping to crack the directors’ guild himself.  No surprise, then, that 20th Century Fox has acquired the screen rights to Nemesis, the latest from Millar as drawn by Steve McNiven; Tony Scott is attached to direct.  In case this is your first introduction to the comic, Nemesis asks the question, “What if the smartest, toughest costumed bad ass in the world was totally evil?”  The answer — or at the very least, more details about the project — can be found after the break.