Jason Statham Back in the Driver's Seat for Transporter 3

Jason Statham, the man who should have been Hitman, has signed on for the third film in the Transporter series. This time around, the series loses director Louis Leterrier (Who also did some great action work in Danny the Dog/Unleashed), and picks up another Frenchman by the name of Olivier Megaton. While I admire the man for his epic last name, his past credits, which include a second-unit director stint on Hitman, do not inspire much confidence. Francois Berleand returns as "Wacky French cop", and Robert Knepper of Prison Break fame joins up, most likely as the new villain.

Like the first two, the new film will be produced by Luc Besson; no word if he will be co-writing it with series regular Robert Mark Kamen. With a franchise gross of $130 million, it should probably surprise nobody that this film is in the works.

As an unabashed fan of this series, despite its many missteps, I'm both overjoyed and  terrified of this third entry. While the first Transporter film was a great romp of an action film, the second one was considerably less enjoyable. It had a handful of great action scenes, but it lost the hip Euro style of the original and replaced it with the setting from the "Bad Boys" films. Now they're losing LeTerrier, a kinetic director who helped define the series, and replacing him with someone of dubious potential. Of course, LeTerrier himself was unproven when work began on the first film, so much so that martial arts choreographer for the series Corey Yuen was credited as co-director to help sell the film.

Unlike my feelings on the Bourne series, I believe the Transporter series can easily live on for multiple sequels, with or without Statham. I just hope Luc Besson actually gets to direct one before this franchise is run into the ground.

[Variety via Cinematical]