10 Established Actors Who Completely Failed At Being Action Stars
5. Taylor Lautner
Attempts: Abduction (2011), Tracers (2015)
On paper, Lautner had plenty going for him in 2011. He was knee deep in the super fandom of the Twilight Series, portraying Jacob Black, that oh-so worn "werewolf with abs of gold" trope. And before that, he cornered a small section of the family adventure genre with The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D.
Unfortunately, Abduction wasn't able to cash in on any of that popularity (nor the pedigree of director John Singleton) because it was, to put it nicely, only slightly more pleasant than a coma. Watching the young Lautner wear the mask of an action hero for 100 minutes was a surefire way to combat insomnia, but provided literally nothing else of merit to the world.
The critical dismay and box office tanking of Abduction all but ripped the plug out on Lautner's future as an action star. He was set to play the real life version of both Max Steel and Stretch Armstrong, but the studios presumably decided Lautner didn't have the range to play even action figurines.
He gave it one more shot with Tracers, which was essentially a B-movie version of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Premium Rush, but with more parkour and less on-film acknowledgment that the premise was insane. It was...not so good.