Given how many projects Taylor Lautner has signed his time to in the last few weeks, we should have figured that something would have to give. And as Mattel and Hasbro both aggressively try to market their products to movie studios hungry for a sure-thing franchise, we knew each company would try to make it into a zero-sum game: neither can live while the other survives. And while a company will not live or die based on what abs-heavy teenager decides, Mattel has just been dealt a near-fatal blow in the toy wars: Lautner has bailed on Mattel's Max Steel movie, opting to make Hasbro's Stretch Armstrong instead.
He'd been previously attached to both, but as Vulture explains in their scoop, it became clear to Lautner that Hasbro has their act together when it comes to getting movies made-- Transformers and G.I. Joe, obviously, plus the upcoming Candy Land, Battleship and Risk movies-- while Mattel has a backlog of direct-to-DVD Barbie movies to its name.
Of course, Lautner could have done both-- it's not like he's one of the Iron Man actors chained to Marvel for all time-- but he's clearly aligning himself with the people on top. That's one smart werewolf we've got here.
