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Paramount has confirmed to me exclusively that it’s hired 8-pack-abs Taylor Lautner for the lead in Max Steel, instantly creating perhaps the next young big action star. (The Twilight Saga phenom is only 17 years old, and the Summit Entertainment folks predicted to me a year ago that he’d end up in demand for this kind of role after he bulked up for New Moon.) This is the Joe Roth-produced project based on the hugely successful Mattel property that’s an international bestseller. The movie will receive a major push planned as Mattel raises its stateside presence with the Paramount release. I’m told Max Steel will be a four-quadrant popcorn movie in the spirit of Iron Man about a 19-year-old extreme sports junkie recruited by a secret agency after an accident infects his body, leaving him with superhuman powers. The screenwriters are also young, Chad Damiani & JP Lavin, who started getting attention around town with their action-comedy script Kamikaza Love as well as Sons Of The Hammer and Capeshooters. This is yet another big young action star for the studio under Paramount Film Group president Adam Goodman along with the recent announcement that Chris Pine is attached to the Jack Ryan franchise from Tom Clancy. Then there’s Shia LaBeouf, whom then DreamWorks exec Goodman put in Disturbia which he was overseeing, and Paramount cast in the Transformers franchise. Smart to start the youth movement (Sony Pics did that with Tobey Maguire and Spider-Man), not just because the young-uns can play the part for years, but even better they won’t break a hip doing it.
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cool– he seems like a nice guy and doesn’t complain about the twilight fame like the other 2 do.
oh really?! what is wrong about the other two? ROb and Kristen? I mean yeah they are not Hollywood stereotype.. Is that wrong?!
I PRAY he maintains his current mystique. This kid could go far if he keeps from being a drugged out whiner cowering from the flashes on the outside while desperate for attention on the inside.
Good luck Taylor. At this point, you will make OR BREAK yourself. Stay away from the partiers and focus on that brass ring.
DITTO. We can only hope
AMEN to that. Taylor is adorable. We have all seen many child actors be destroyed because of fame. He has so much potential. Hopefully, his family will keep him grounded and he will have the sense to stay away from the wild Hollywood parties and drug scene.
exactly!
The guy’s a freak. Look at him. I give it five years.
your an esh! he is hot probably hoter than u will ever get loser.
form biggest taylor fan!
Adam Goodman is genius.
Wally- I think you meant Adam Goodman is a Penis. Another toy movie. Max Steel? Yawn
Good one Wally! I mean Adam.
He probably doesn’t complain because he hasn’t had to go through the crap that the other 2 have gone through. This sounds like another cliche Ironman/Fantastic Four movie. No thanks.
Lautner seems to be a pretty great kid without all the tired, priveledged hairass Cleopatra attitude of “DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM, “? SNORT! As long as he and his parents can keep their heads in perspective, while still having a realistic expectation of what passes for morality, honesty and ” trust me babe….WOULD I lie to you? Who loves ya baby? current work ethic in this town
Bottom line, “stay golden, pony boy….” He’ll learn if he takes it easy and plans carefully….Taylor should hire Shia’s mom to run interference {:>)
YES! I was hoping this kid would make it big…
I’m not a Twilight fan, but this guy does seem sweet. As mom of a 6yo, I only really know him as Sharkboy.
Go get it, Sharkboy!
This is a bad idea. Action movies have a much larger male demographic than Twilight. Taylor offers nothing for a male audience that isn’t 100% gay. Hetero guys don’t want to see an action movie starring a 17 year old sensitive underwear model. He can’t play a relatable regular guy (eg Shia, DiCaprio). He doesn’t have a recognizable macho edge(Chris Pine, Daniel Craig). He a teen idol that girls drool over and men just role their eyes. The female equivalent is Megan Fox; most of the female audience simply isn’t relating and rooting for her. Years ago, Brad Pitt (and years before that, Robert Redford) started out just as “hunks” but they had chops (and age). Taylor Lautner is more like Josh Hartnett, Freddie Prinze Jr, Chad Michael Murray and Ashton Kutcher before him. Not right for action. Wrong actor, wrong audience.
Bingo
i disagree. and i don’t work for lautner. he studied martial arts and he’s believeable doing stunts. he’s more of a jock than shia. and shia can’t open a movie.
lautner’s a totally likeable guy in a tom cruise kinda way (circa 80s and 90s). and this is the better comparison than freddie prinz jr and josh harnatt. i see him more like tom cruise, keanu reeves. he just needs his ‘bill and ted’s excellent adventure’ and ‘matrix’ to make guys forget about NM. guys like(d) keanu and women do(did)too.
Leonardo was not relatable when he first hit big. Guys HATED him for Romeo & Juliet and Titanic; he looked like a girl and was all sensitive & ish. Most people hadn’t really seen Basketball Diaries. Leonardo had to (re)prove himself as a serious actor after he became the teen dream. Taylor, if he’s smart and has the talent, can do the same.
Huh? Oh, Puhleez!
Weren’t they saving that one for that Transformers kid?
Zzzzzttt!
Wrong.
The wooden backdrop for “Twilight” had more charisma than this bore.
He makes “Night of the Living Dead” zombies look like Oliviers.
I guess the Paramount folks think his visual appeal is worth the investment, even though the preferred archetype of the Hollywood “action” hero has evolved, shedding the he-man personae of Arnuld, Sly, and Willis from yesteryear, for those with more cerebral bents, like Robert Downey Jr in “Iron Man” and Liam Neeson in “Taken”.
Still, I’m sure his flicks will pull in $$$$, but they won’t be the half-billion dollar global blockbusters they’re envisioning.
Veriaty is the spice of life. All those actors were in their thirties before making it big.
The guy is only 17! And the competition for roles must be stagering.
Remember that legendary actor in a “Rebel Without a cause”?
You know why he is a legend? Only becuase he was the first the mold. If there was a revolving door of Boy Flesh actors back then as there is today Put a leather jacket on Lautner transport him back in time and evey blond haired boy would have been dying their hair black.
getting a little tired of gay men picking our action stars
Are you retarded or just homophobic and stupid?
You’re an idiot. Gay men have been picking your action stars since the dawn of Hollywood. And your dramatic leads, and your comedy stars, and your romantic leads, and your detective series stars, and your music stars, and the wacky neighbors on your favorite sitcoms, and the cats who sell you kitty litter at the commercial breaks…Do you get the point? Gay men have been telling you what to watch, read, wear, listen to and do all your miserable little life. And so far, ignorance aside, you’ve managed to survive it. I’M getting a little tired of stupid people like you. Yawn.
It wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t have such terrible taste in everything. But lately it’s gone overboard, I think the gay Superman was the last straw for me. Here’s a tip, fellows, real men don’t spend 7 hours in the gym sculpting their abs.
50 or 30 or even 20 years ago, male leads tended to be men that other men could relate to. Now we have boy-faced underwear models who are only of interest to 14 year old girls and middle-aged gay men (an interesting dynamic). If you don’t see anything wrong with that, well say hi George Michael for me.
Speaking as a middle-aged gay male, I can assure you that plenty of us could care less about this cardboard cut out of a gym model. I for one only swoon when I find out that James Gandolfini has been cast in a movie — bears do it for me, what can I say? Anwyay, plenty of us like actual masculine male actors who convey charisma, intelligence and strength of character so don’t lump us all into whatever fear of sculpted abs you seem to have.
i am straight male, in my 50′s . I’m not intimidated by this kid and i don’t agree with your post, give the kid a break , he’s a good actor and the body he has he WORKED hard to get , he did it to keep his job. Also , time will tell if he can make a name for himself aside from the twilight glitter , sexist coments are not needed and unwanted ,It would seem your intimidated by his male sexuality which tells us your Insecure about your own, or maybe barton fink was right…..
I like this post. A photo of Taylor sparks an inner flame of fear and repulsion, but you can’t stop looking away, can you, nor can you stop fantasizing about the beads of water running down his torso. You know, research has shown that men with that phobia also score highest on homoerotic response. I’m just saying. Might be something to look into.
Sorry I lost you half way through, I was concentrating on those beads of water.
If we are reading and posting to this story that means something.
Any press is better than none. Taylor = TheOneToWatch and I will be watching.
actually straight men score highly on aversion to homoerotic images, but the problem with this picture isn’t so much the homoeroticism as the depiction of a manboy stud who doesn’t look masculine at all, but like a teenager on steroids and with a massive body image problem (akin to a woman who starves herself and gets massive breast implants)
it’s that body image that many gay men are obsessed with (hence the subculture of teen studmuffins like this actor–someone tell his agent), and straight men find unpleasantly queer
but go ahead and call me a closet case, it doesn’t mean you’re mad or anything
he’s got such a tom cruise thing going and that’s not necessarily a good thing. you know, that rigid sparkly thing. anyway, it seems an obvious choice, tho kinda gay….
yes–t.l. seems genuinely nice.
the others?….if you don;t want fame, don’t do movies.
Hello Jacob I am now team Jacov not team Edware. Sorry he is cute! OMG
Gee, have his testicles descended yet?
I believe the only success you will see after Twilight–in a box office sense–is for Pattinson, not Stewart or Lautner. This Max Steel series will flop.
LIES!
Pattinson is a freak and complains about the whole fame thing. Taylor will make a success out of himself and of this.
Why must every story about Taylor invoke some point or comment about Rob Ratzinson? Go talk about that wooden plank somewhere else. Rob will fade and you will be asking yourself “Remember that movie with the vampire? What was his name?”
Max Steel probably won’t be a huge box office smash but it won’t be Taylor’s fault. I just don’t think the character is that popular. So somebody better get out a cartoon for the kids to see, and Mattel production people better get their asses in gear if they want this to be a huge comercial success. Mattel if your reading this, Quallity over Quantity. Don’t make the same mistake you did with Speed Racer.
And to think his character was almost left out of New Moon……
That would have been a real mistake on their part to say the least.
Taylor Lautner seems to be just what he was in Lava Boy…A really sweet, down to earth guy…I hope he becomes a major star…He deserves it.
good for him. But can he act? I might be the only one who’s never seen the New Moon movie.
Isn’t it time to add a fifth quadrant consisting of moviegoing gay men? Given Taylor’s popularity with that group, this may be a five-quadrant movie. Or whatever quadrants are called when there are five of them.
I’m guessing “Quintant.”
I guess Adam only knows how to make one kind of movie.
And no one seems to mind that watching this poor sweet boy act is about as enjoyable as watching someone wash their feet? Another massive waste of celluloid… Or… well, most likely hard drive space.
Stallone and Schwarzenegger could act to save their lives, but they were two of the biggest movie stars on the late 80s-90s.
Yay! Taylor will be amazing!
Last year after Twilight came out I commented that Rob Pattison and Taylor Lautner were the next Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise …and my comments were met with outrage and distain from the other DHD posters. So glad that such a good kid is reaping the rewards for his and his parents hard work and dedication!!!
Someone is putting the carriage before the horse.Neither Pattison or Lautner have done anything outside of the Twilight junk.You might want to wait until they actually carry a successful movie not a part of the Twilight series before you start crowing.
Actually Pattinson has done a few things outside Twilight (mostly UK movies) and from what I hear they’re just all really bad.
I think Taylor can do fine as an action star; he’s got the physique for it and can do his own stunts. His acting isn’t the best, but it’s getting better. I don’t know how he’s not relatable, he seems like a regular 17 year old (good) guy to me. As long as they advertise the movie right (with lots of good action in the trailors – and not mentioning he’s from twilight), I’m sure it’ll do fine.
Hopefully he will get some acting lessons then. No offense, really, he isn’t supposed to be a good actor at the age of 17 but honestly his efforts have been weak so far. But if he is willing to work on that, then good luck !
I’m really happy for Taylor. He said he wanted to be in an action movie and now he is. That’s great he’s a great kid and should do well. Best of everything to you Taylor.
The differnece between Iron man and Max Steel would be Robert Downey’s excellent acting skills and heaps of personality versus Taylor’s lack of both.
I hope he spends as much time working on his acting muscles as he did on his abs. I applaud the tenacious way he managed to hang onto his part thorugh sheer hard work. I just wish he would take a break from the gym to work with a top level acting coach.
Sorry to burst your bubble but Lautner is a very solid young actor, his performance in new moon was the best thing about the movie.
C’mon — I liked NEW MOON, but his “acting” was laughable. He couldn’t deliver a single line convincingly.
robert downey jr. is too old. and with all the doping and boozing in his post ‘less than zero’ days he has not aged very nicely. it’s quit laughable that’s he’s supposed to do interview with a vampire.