Stretch Armstrong

The last time I wrote about Stretch Armstrong, my head was exploding because of how much I loathed the idea. Some time has passed and I've collected every cranial fragment and reconstructed my skull, but i still think a Stretch Armstrong movie sounds like the worst thing since the Third Reich. However, Universal Pictures looks ready to try to change my mind with their selection of writer and director.

Rob Letterman, co-director of Dreamworks Animation's Monsters vs Aliens, will sit in the director's chair and Nicholas Stoller, the co-writer of the very funny Forgetting Sarah Marshall, will work on the script. This allows me to jump to one conclusion: Stretch Armstrong will be a comedy, or at least an action movie with heavy comedic elements. This is definitely more palatable than a "serious" film about a man with a super-stretching ability (at least Mr. Fantastic was one of four characters with superpowers that couldn't carry an entire film on their own).

Sometimes, this whole "movie news" thing is just depressing. For every thing I post about Alfonso Cuaron making an amazing sounding science fiction film with Angelina Jolie, I have another piece about popular non-entity Taylor Lautner making the big decision that one movie based on a lame toy line is more worthy of his time than another.

Yes folks, Taylor Lautner has dropped out of Max Steel so he can concentrate on Stretch Armstrong.

There's got to be a hilarious Hollywood satire at the center of all of this. Paramount and Mattel face off against Universal and Hasbro, both trying to recruit the super-hot but dreadfully boring star of the moment to play second tier characters based on toys that no one has cared about in ages. Quick! Find me a Necronomicon and let's resurrect Robert Altman to make a pseudo-sequel to The Player! Or we can just get Armando Iannucci, if that's cheaper.

I remember commercials for Max Steel and Stretch Armstrong toys when I was but a wee lad, but even at an age where bad taste is a way of life, I knew Max Steel was a pretty big bag of lame and that the actual playability of a Stretch Armstrong was limited. The fact that they are even considering making a movie about either of these properties is mind-boggling to me. At least GI Joe and Transformers were brands with longevity. Do they even make either of these toys anymore?

The very thought of Taylor "My Abs Are As Rock Hard As My Unmoving And Boring Face" Lautner playing the lead in a movie about a guy who can stretch real good makes me want to drain a bottle of vodka and cry myself to sleep in the closet. It truly feels like the bottom of the barrel. It makes me depressed to be a movie fan.

(Via The Vulture)

Two Hasbro toy based films have been pushed back, one because of a decision to go 3D, and another to go sci-fi.

Taylor Lautner is set to star as Stretch Armstrong in the 3D movie based on the Hasbro toy. The film is set for release in 2012, after pushing back the release date about a year. According to THR, the plot is very Peter Parker-esque, with Stretch as an uptight spy who has to adjust to life after stumbling across a stretching formula.

Lautner is best known as Jacob Black in the Twilight franchise, was also Sharkboy in The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D and voiced a couple of characters in the animated series Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century.

The report also includes a tidbit that yet another Hasbro toy adaptation, Battleship, is being pushed back to introduce a sci-fi component (read: aliens). Battleship is now being positioned for Memorial Day weekend 2012, which suggests that Stretch Armstrong is probably going to be released later in the year to avoid competition.