"Taken" director yields to "Signals" thriller

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - French filmmaker Pierre Morel, who most recently directed the $224 million worldwide hit "Taken," is moving on to another thriller.

The plot of "Signals" is secret, but it is expected to take on the tone of a 1970s-era paranoid thriller like "Three Days of the Condor." Morel, a former camera operator and cinematographer, spun similarly gritty material with the kidnapping/revenge plot of "Taken," which starred Liam Neeson.

He returns to theaters in February with the Lionsgate actioner "From Paris With Love." He also has an untitled Tokyo-set thriller set up at Paramount, and he recently became attached to the action thriller "Pursuit" for Universal.

The "Signals" script was written by Richard Potter and Matthew Stravitz, and snapped up in April by Media Rights Capital, the indie financier behind "Bruno."