With the rise of the Twilight Saga into pop culture phenomenon, it also introduced Taylor Lautner into mainstream Hollywood. And with the success of New Moon, he is now being targeted as Hollywood’s next leading man. So far, he has two action movies being lined up and with the success of Eclipse, it is expected that more Hollywood executives would be knocking at his door.

New York Times Vulture Blog looks into Taylor Lautner’s star power and how far will he go in Hollywood. Here is an excerpt:

At all of 18, Taylor Lautner has appeared in films that have grossed over one billion dollars at the box office, and just by threatening to doff his shirt, he can reliably elicit shrieks and heart palpitations in a significant segment of the female population. But is the money and the screaming for Lautner, or for hisTwilight character, Jacob Black? He’s become wildly in demand, with studios abruptly anointing him as the next big thing, yet he’s a bit of a cipher. When he leaves his phenomenon of a franchise, will he be Harrison Ford … or Mark Hamill? To find out, we examined his career arc and upcoming projects, interrogated agents, publicist, and managers, and measured the decibel levels outside theaters showing Eclipse, all to determine his value in the Star Market.

STOCK HISTORY: Michigan-born Lautner has been acting professionally since he was 9 years old, with such credits asCheaper by the Dozen 2 andThe Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl. But he didn’t become a name brand until he got the Abs. WhenNew Moon grossed $710 worldwide (and with Robert Pattinson largely absent from the movie), he and Team Jacob became the story. He made for the perfect focal point for the sequel’s success because of his triumphant tale of fighting to keep his job and butterflylike rebirth; his new buffness made people root for him, just as they do the wiseacre outcast teenager in a teen movie who ditches her glasses and gets a makeover for the prom. Suddenly, even though he had only two hits to his name (both in a name-brand franchise), studios were weighing him for seemingly every new blockbuster that needed a young star —Spider-Man,Max Steel — and he was cast in Universal’sStretch Armstrong, as well as two genre movies,Abduction andCancun. He’s a bit of a blank slate, with a nondescript (though age-appropriately-so) persona, which allows Hollywood to project their own franchise fantasies on him and for tweens to latch onto. However, a true movie star has to attract a lot more people than just tweens, and he has a lot of work to do before adults consider him anything other than “that kid on my daughter’s screensaver.”

PAST EARNINGS:

Twilight (2008): $1 million

New Moon (2009): $4 million

Eclipse (2010): $7.5 miion

Abduction (2011): $7.5 million

Stretch Armstrong (future): Deal pending delivery of script, thoughEclipse’s ever-multiplying grosses will put him in an ever-stronger bargaining position.

PEERS: When movies looking for a young star for popcorn fare are being cast, Lautner’s name is often mentioned in the same initial brainstorms as the much more entrenched Shia LaBeouf and Zac Efron (though Efron, in a bid for seriousness and a longer career, is vanishing from that conversation). Other stars in his strata:Kick Ass’s Aaron Johnson; Anton Yelchin (Chekov inStar Trek); future “Thor” Chris Hemsworth; and more serious thespians likeThe Social Network co-stars Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield. The last two have the advantage of adult recognition and industry confidence, if not the musculature, but if Garfield’s recent anointment as the new Spider-Man proves, that’s not a deal-breaker.

MARKET VALUE: Hollywood is desperate for a dependably bankable male star, and Lautner’s mix of muscles and soft, not-quite-ripe cuddliness is a combo that sparks fantasies of movies that attract both men and women. Though his winning track record is entirely tied to one franchise, at least that means that millions of people know him, which is more than one can say for the squads of equally good-looking guys on marginally rated CW shows or slasher films. The studios behind his next two movies, both likely to be mid-priced genre movies — John Singleton’sAbduction, in which his character sees his face on a milk carton and realizes his childhood was a lie, andCancun, aTaken-like thriller, only with the vengeful son tracking down his kidnapped dad — are betting that even if only a fraction of theTwilight audiences come to see him again, that will be enough to make a nice profit. As long as theTwilight movies keep coming, he’ll be the matinee idol de jour — but the franchise’s last movie opens in 2012, so the studios have to move fast.

WHAT HOLLYWOOD THINKS:“Everyone wants him because that’s what the Hollywood business culture wants: franchise movies,” explains one agent. “And he’s a bankable star because he’s been in a successful franchise. You couldn’t have a better launching pad.” A manager liked what he saw when Lautner hosted Saturday Night Live, “because he showed he was game for anything.” And a publicist thinks his rep has been well managed: “His press all along has been very classy without being too trendy. That’s good, because if you’re too trendy, you can wind up looking like you’re just of-the-moment, rather than someone who’s going to have longevity.” What Lautner mostly has going for him is that he has nothing going against him yet, but that’s also a concern. As the manager explains, “Lautner’s the perfect guy: all success, and no failure — but no failure because there hasn’t been much of a chance to fail. So, everything remains to be seen.” A second agent, however, was more frank, disparaging Lautner’s acting abilities and predicting that unless his current fame gets him some excellent scripts, “he’ll wind up retiring as a very rich 20-year-old, or on some Aaron Spelling–type TV show.”

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