Taylor_Lautner_3EXCLUSIVE: I’ve learned that after 5 PM today, bidders will be told who won that Taylor Lautner-attached script Abducted which the new motion picture lit agency Verve sent out for its client Shawn Christensen. (At one point, Lionsgate asked for an exclusive negotiating window.) Meanwhile, there’s a lot more Lautner news. He and Skydance’s flyboy movie Northern Lights have “respectfully parted ways over casting issues”, sources tell me, noting, “Taylor’s people want to step up and put the best actors and directors around him.” (I hear the Northern Lights project will continue to move forward without Lautner…) Now 5 more movies have been offered to the Twilight Saga’s 18-year-old co-star, including 2 for that open April slot. As for that new salary high of $7.5 million Skydance had offered him for Northern Lights, I’ve learned that Universal paid him that sum to play the title role in Stretch Armstrong. It’s good to be Taylor right now. (And let me talk you off the ledge if you’re not.)

Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.