Pierre Morel is best known as the director of TAKEN, the modestly budgeted French indie thriller that went on to gross nearly $300M worldwide and spawned two sequels and a television series based off his original blockbuster, making it one of the rare indie film franchises in history to gross $1B worldwide. 

Prior to TAKEN, Morel helmed the French language Parkour actioner DISTRICT B13 which became a cult classic and spawned both a sequel and an English language remake, not to mention having inspired a generation of action films that followed including James Bond’s CASINO ROYALE.

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Morel began his career as a cinematographer working with Luc Besson (“Taxi”), Louis Letterier (“Transporter”), Nancy Meyers (“Somethings Gotta Give”) and Jonathan Demme (“The Truth About Charlie”).

His feature work includes the French actioner FROM PARIS WITH LOVE, the international spy drama THE GUNMAN starring Oscar winners Sean Penn, Javier Bardem and Mark Rylance, and the recent female driven action/thriller PEPPERMINT which grossed over $35M domestically.

On the television side Morel directed and executive produced the pilot for both the long running NBC medical series THE NIGHT SHIFT (which ran five seasons) and the short lived sci fi drama ZERO HOUR for ABC. 

Morel is repped by UTA, Sentient’s Renee Tab and attorney Gretchen Rush.