Ashleigh Hill-Buxton
It mightn’t have made much of a dint at the box office but director Joe Carnahan’s “A-Team” – based on the classic Cannell series starring, er, Starbuck and Mr T – was a jolly good time. You can’t deny that. Action, thrills, comedy and super-duper action set pieces, it really did deliver on it’s promise to be a good time. Sadly, for one reason or another (maybe nobody much remembered, let alone cared for an “A-Team” movie?), the Fox release didn’t do anything financially. As such, one would assume the franchise lived and died right there.
Speaking to star Liam Neeson and director Joe Carnahan today at the press junket for “The Grey” and it’d seem that’s indeed the case – Fox aren’t willing to pony up for another “A-Team” movie, not after their losses on the original.
“A-Team [2], I don’t think so. I don’t think it made enough money. The studio don’t want [it]”, Neeson, who took on the ol’ George Peppard role of Hannibal Smith for the movie said.
Carnahan says “as much fun as I had making that movie, I don’t want to get tied up in that whole world of sequels and franchises. There’s too many movies I want to make. There’s too many other stories I want to tell. The good thing that came out of A-Team not being successful is that I would never have made The Grey, I’d be working on A-Team 2 right now. And that would have been a bigger bummer to me.”
One sequel we might see, says Carnahan, is a sequel to his acclaimed thriller “Narc” (2002), about about corrupt police involved in the illegal drug trade. The filmmaker has already pitched the project to actor Ray Liotta, who would reprise his role as Lt. Henry Oak.
“I was talking to Ray Liotta the other night about a Narc sequel”, Carnahan reveals. “I told him the opening…if I could do that movie for like ten million bucks and not be bothered and be left to do my thing I would do it in a second. Creative control means more to me than having my name on a big-budget thing.”
“Narc 2”! Nice! But who’s a little disappointed to hear that an “A-Team” sequel won’t be happening?
