Taylor Lautner, Indie Movie Star?

It feels as thought it has been quite a long time since we have seen the glorious abdominal region of actor Taylor Lautner, let alone his sheer presence in a film in general: Lautner's most recent project was this year's Tracers, in which he plays the role of a bike messenger being chased by the Mafia, and, before that, he appeared in Grown Ups 2 in 2013 and all those films about vampires in the years prior. However, it has recently been reported by TheWrap that our big cuddly werewolf may be back: Taylor Lautner might be in negotiations to star in indie movie Run the Tide .

The film, which really hasn’t seen any interesting updates since the summer of 2013, could finally be on track if Lautner actually decides to take this on. If he does, the actor will play the main character Rey, a man who kidnaps his younger brother Oliver and heads to California to escape their drug-abusing mother who herself is released from prison and wants to rebuild their family. The two brothers do their best to start a new future for themselves, void of issues from their past, while their mother Lola and her ex-husband attempt to follow after them.

The movie will be directed by Soham Mehta, the script was written by Rajiv Shah, and both men will be producing along with Tim Kwok.

Although all of this is up in the air right now as confirmation of Lautner’s participation has yet to be confirmed, this new role may come as a surprise to many who don’t typically see the celebrity in such serious roles that require more than lifting his shirt. Lautner may have played his part in Abduction, but I think we can all admit that was a real crash and burn — like, Rotten Tomatoes only gave the film a four percent on the tomatometer. Yikes. Plus, it’s a bit difficult to take the actor seriously after that horribly gooey role he had with Taylor Swift in Valentine’s Day. That torture was real:

However, it’s may not necessarily be Lautner’s acting that’s the problem, but it might actually be the roles he’s taking on and the character’s he’s choosing to portray. I doubt that “frat bro” and “sharkboy” are quite helpful on his resume, so if he really is reaching a deal to join the cast for Run the Tide, then this might just be the push he needs to prove that he can be part of the big leagues. Sure, the Twilight saga will go down as one of the most popular film franchises in history, but that doesn’t exactly scream Oscar-worthy. At all.

Yet not only does the plot of Run the Tide seem like a good platform for Lautner so he can put his acting range to the test, but even his former Twilight co-star found extreme success after her most recent gig in indie movies: Kristen Stewart was lauded for her performance in Camp X-Ray at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, which was equally surprising as this Lautner news, because she often gets a lot of criticism for her somewhat static performances and little to no emotion in several of her films. However, even then Stewart has scored many more “big girl” roles in movies like On the Road, The Runaways and Panic Room than her Twilight co-star. She’s even taking on another indie film called Anesthesia.

So, it looks like Lautner should follow in the footsteps of his friend as we know Jacob would for Bella, and use his role as Rey to show us that hidden talent.

And it's not this... although we're still okay with this:

Images: twifans.com, Tumblr