In 2005, Lautner co-starred as Sharkboy with Taylor Dooley within the superhero journey movie The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D. The movie follows Max, a lonely younger boy who invents an imaginary world to flee — just for this dream realm to come back to life. Sharkboy and Lavagirl arrive at Max’s college once they want his assist saving their planet. In 2020, director Robert Rodriguez launched the spinoff movie We Can Be Heroes, which featured Dooley — however Lautner was surprisingly absent. Rodriguez defined that the concept of asking Lautner to commit time to such a small position simply did not sit proper with him as a director.
“There wasn’t a large enough position for him to do. It wasn’t about these characters… He turned such a giant star after Twilight that he would have an expectation,” Rodriguez defined in an interview with Decider. “May you think about if he was in it, after which they see it and so they’re like, ‘Wait! His face is roofed the entire time! Hey, he did not have any dialogue!’ It’d definitely seem like a demerit in opposition to him, and I would not need that.”
