I’ve just learned that Taylor Lautner is now being paid per ab. That’s right, the 17-year-old co-star of the Twilight Saga franchise who’s famous for his buff physique that is making girls scream when he takes off his shirt in New Moon, is getting $7.5 million for his next pic. It’s called Northern Lights, a Tom Cruise vehicle to be directed by John Moore (Max Payne) with a start date of April 1st. The logline says the pic is about “a gifted, young, aerobatics pilot who faces off with his controlling, billionaire father and falls in love with a gifted, female pilot). It’s being made by David Ellison’s new company Skydance Productions, and Paramount has a first look at his development. That shitload of money negotiated by WME now makes Taylor Lautner into the highest paid Hollywood teenage actor around. (I’m told that neither Zac Efron nor Miley Cyrus have ever gotten a salary even close to that for their films. Amazing!) So the question is whether Paramount, which is in the Taylor Lautner business in a big way with the recently announced Max Steel, will pony up an even huger salary for the teen who’ll be starring as the title lead in their own upcoming blockbuster.

SOURCE: Deadline

I guess we believe Taylor Lautner as an angsty teen werewolf, so why not buy him as both Tom Cruise’s
kid and a pilot. Lautner is apparently about to get paid a massive $7.5 million to take a role in Northern Lights, a movie that will star Lautner as an “aerobatics pilot who faces off with his controlling, billionaire father and falls in love with a gifted female pilot.” Given that Cruise will likely be playing the father, we can either think of this as a very depressing Top Gun sequel or simply a nod at self-parody.

According to Deadline Hollywood, production will get started on April 1 with Max Payne director John Moore on board. Now I have nothing particularly against John Moore, but I suffered mightily through Max Payne, and won’t forget it soon. Of course he also made the flight-centric Flight of the Phoenix, so he’s at least got some propeller experience.

The biggest news about this is Lautner’s gigantic payday, and the sense that he’s already of leading man caliber to star alongside Cruise. Given that Lautner hasn’t carried a single movie without the word Twilight in the title, that’s a pretty significant gamble. Robert Pattinson’s projects beyond Twilight haven’t really gone anywhere, though granted, he hasn’t been groomed as a new star by a studio in the same way. But can the Twilight effect carry on without Bella lurking somewhere in the frame?

SOURCE: Cinema Blend