Ashleigh Hill-Buxton
Taylor Lautner is out of “Stretch Armstrong”.
Suggestion the actor’s share price is already falling, Deadline says Hasbro dropped the young actor from the feature film after his 2011 release “Abduction” failed to generate much box-office.
But Universal, who were originally set to make a film out of the toy, have also left the project. Relativity has now taken over.
A press release issued today by Relativity makes no mention of Lautner or director Rob Letterman, so seems they’re starting completely from scratch.
Deadline has learned that the Twilight Saga star is no longer attached. The Tay-Tay camp is claiming “it was our choice” to pull out of the film, but in fact a project insider told Deadline months ago right after Lautner’s Lionsgate film Abduction bombed that the studio was rethinking the project with Lautner as star but that Hasbro would make the final decision on the status of the project. Looks like that has happened.
When we spoke to Lautner at the “Abduction” junket in Melbourne last year he didn’t sound very optimistic about the project, noting that it’s still being worked on -he was also quick to change the topic and speak of “other projects that haven’t been announced yet”.
Relativity’s incarnation of “Stretch Armstrong” is scheduled for an April 11, 2014 release.
