Home » Latest » Celebrity » Actors Rejected By Hollywood: Taylor Lautner

Actors Rejected By Hollywood: Taylor Lautner

4

37 0 Celebrity

7.5

SaveSavedRemoved 2

Twilight’s highest-paid teen idol couldn’t turn a $1 billion franchise into a solo career.

Taylor Lautner spent his teenage years as one of the most bankable young stars in Hollywood, riding Jacob Black and “The Twilight Saga” to a spot among the highest-paid actors in the business. By 2012, Forbes had him on its list of top-earning actors. Four years later, the leading-man offers had dried up, and Lautner was headed for a supporting slot on network television instead of a marquee action franchise.

• Lautner’s 2011 solo vehicle “Abduction” scored roughly 4-5% on Rotten Tomatoes and made just $28 million domestically against a $35 million production budget.
• His 2015 follow-up, the parkour thriller “Tracers,” fared little better critically at around 24% on Rotten Tomatoes and barely registered at the domestic box office.
• Lautner turned down Liam Hemsworth’s eventual role in “The Expendables 2” and dropped out of “Max Steel” before booking a regular role on Season 2 of Fox’s “Scream Queens” by mid-2016.

The Abduction Problem

“Abduction” was supposed to be Lautner’s proof-of-concept as a standalone action star, and Lionsgate stacked the 2011 thriller with a veteran supporting cast under director John Singleton. Instead it became the film critics still bring up when explaining what went wrong: a script that couldn’t carry a $35 million budget, reviews that landed near 4-5% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a domestic haul of just $28 million that left the studio well short of breaking even.

The math was the problem, not just the reviews. A film that fails to recoup its budget domestically, especially one built around a single star’s drawing power, tends to close doors rather than open them — and that’s exactly what happened next for Lautner’s asking price.

The Salary That Stopped Making Sense

According to The Hollywood Reporter, a major Hollywood producer said plainly that Lautner’s salary demands at the time simply weren’t justified by what “Abduction” delivered in quality or return. That’s a brutal but common verdict in an industry where a star’s price tag is supposed to track box office, not just fan enthusiasm left over from a prior franchise.

A $35 million action vehicle that returned $28 million domestically and settled at roughly 4-5% on Rotten Tomatoes — the numbers Hollywood couldn’t ignore.

Once a producer publicly frames your price as out of step with your box office, studios stop calling with leading roles. That’s the gap Lautner spent the next several years trying to close.

Passing On The Roles That Went To Others

Lautner also walked away from opportunities that might have kept his name in blockbuster conversation. He dropped out of “Max Steel” after being attached, and he passed on the role in “The Expendables 2” that ultimately went to Liam Hemsworth — a franchise slot that continued to pay dividends for Hemsworth’s action-star profile long after. Those decisions, paired with the “Abduction” numbers, left Lautner without a second at-bat as a studio action lead.

Tracers And The Turn Toward Comedy

By the time “Tracers” arrived in 2015, Lautner’s second attempt at a solo action franchise fared no better than his first: roughly 24% on Rotten Tomatoes and virtually no domestic theatrical footprint. Rather than chase a third action vehicle, Lautner pivoted. He appeared in Adam Sandler’s 2015 Netflix western parody “The Ridiculous 6,” and in 2014 he’d already replaced Andy Samberg as the lead of the BBC Three comedy series “Cuckoo.”

That shift away from big-budget action mirrors what a lot of former teen franchise stars have had to do once the physical, action-hero typecasting stopped translating to box office — a recalibration not unlike the one that reshaped Jason Momoa’s own path through Hollywood before he found his footing again.

Landing On Scream Queens

By mid-2016, Lautner had effectively stepped out of the studio blockbuster conversation altogether. His next move was booking a regular role on Season 2 of Fox’s horror-comedy series “Scream Queens” — a TV ensemble gig, not a headlining film, and a fairly clear signal of where his career stood five years removed from “Abduction.”

Season 2 of “Scream Queens” was set to air that fall, putting Lautner back in front of a national audience for the first time since “Tracers” flopped — just not as the guy carrying a $35 million action picture on his own.