Could Liam Neeson be a surprise Oscar contender this year for The Grey?

Deadline seems to think so:

In a surprise development, Tom Ortenberg's Open Road has set the Joe Carnahan-directed killer wolf pack thriller The Grey to open wide on Jan. 27. Now, that puts the movie beyond the Oscars. But I'm told that Open Road has left open the possibility that the film could get a qualifying run in two theaters before year's end so that Liam Neeson would qualify for the Best Actor category. I must say I am a bit surprised that the qualifying run isn't an automatic. Buyers who watched the movie and bid on it in July before Open Road won it -- paying near $8 million and a $25 million P&A commitment for U.S. rights -- all hailed Neeson's performance as Oscar bait. The deal was based on watching 30 minutes of scenes, but word was that opening this year, even just to qualify, was a priority for the sellers and a reason some distributors with full Oscar-season skeds shied away. Neeson plays the leader of a group of oil drillers who struggle to survive in the wilds of Alaska after their plane crashes smack in the middle of a territorial rogue wolf pack. Carnahan won't finish the film in time to show it at Telluride, Toronto or the New York Film Festival, but they will get enough feedback from advance screenings to make a decision about whether it's ready to wage an Oscar campaign for Neeson, who was nominated once in his career for Schindler's List and has enjoyed a leading man resurgence thanks to Taken.

-Joey's Two Cents: Very often these limited qualifying runs end up being for naught, but this could be n exception, so stay tuned...thoughts?

Liam Neeson will be making 'Taken 2'...and apparently it's his signature role?

From Deadline:

Liam Neeson and Luc Besson have come to a meeting of the minds and they have worked out the scheduling snafu that made him iffy for Taken 2. Neeson's reps at CAA are now closing the deal for Neeson to reprise what has become a signature role. Production is now being eyed for year end or beginning of 2012. Neeson will stick to his plan to take the rest of the year off, after completing the Clash of the Titans sequel he's shooting in London. He has been working almost nonstop, wrapping The Grey for Joe Carnahan and Battleship for Peter Berg.

EARLIER: A fascinating drama has been playing out over the past few weeks on Taken 2, the sequel to the surprise global hit film hatched by Luc Besson that reinvigorated Liam Neeson. I'm told Besson has teamed on a script with Robert Mark Kamen, and that he's in talks with his Transporter 3 director Olivier Megaton to direct the sequel. But he has been dealing with a huge problem: Neeson has all but withdrawn from reprising his role as Bryan Mills, the retired government operative who in the 2008 original decimated the Paris underworld to free his kidnapped daughter. The reason isn't money, but rather scheduling: Besson wants to shoot it this year and Neeson wants to take time off. Continuing without Neeson is hard to imagine, but I've heard Besson has gone as far as assembling a list of actors to take his place. That list includes Mickey Rourke, Ralph Fiennes, Ray Winstone, Sean Bean and Jason Isaacs.