Is 'Twilight: New Moon' star Taylor Lautner the next Tom Cruise?

January 6, 2010 11:09 AM ET

Taylor Lautner's brand new muscles have certainly paid off.

Not only did they enable him to keep his "Twilight: New Moon" Jacob Black role but he's reportedly getting $7.5 million for his next pic to play a controlling Tom Cruise's stubborn son.

That paycheck is more than any other teen star in Hollywood, earns for their movies including Zac Efron and Miley Cyrus.

Good Lord. Is Taylor being paid per crunch?

Taylor's new film is called "Northern Lights," to be directed by John Moore (who will also direct Taylor in his upcoming superhero flick, "Max Steel"), and is about "a gifted, young, aerobatics pilot who faces off with his controlling, billionaire father and falls in love with a gifted, female pilot."

Sure sounds like a vintage Cruise role, doesn't it? Can you say "I feel the need ... the need for speed"?

Deadline Hollywood's Nikki Finke wonders if Paramount has a new boy toy action star. So do we.

We also wonder if this father/son casting explains why Kellan Lutz has been talking to everyone he sees about how he wants to play Matt Damon's brother in a "Bourne" film.

What's next for Taylor? Scientology and a long string of beautiful women who never seem to have "chemistry" with him?

Hey, eventually, he could end up marrying Suri Cruise.