Titles as banal as the new Taylor Lautner flick and as celebrated as The Social Network have shown up on an annual survey proclaiming the industry's most promising screenplays

Lionsgate

If you've ever wondered what Jason Bourne was like in high school, you're in luck. Today sees the release of Abduction, a bland-looking thriller starring Twilight heartthrob Taylor Lautner. Lautner's complete inability to emote—what some people would call "acting"—precludes him from most roles, but not from woodenly scowling through a by-the-numbers action flick.

Make no mistake: Abduction is a Lautner vehicle, engineered to transition the young actor from Twilight heartthrob to plausible action star. There's something almost aggressively banal about Abduction's trailer, which feels like it's been cobbled together from the remnants of other, better action films (and the trailer's all we have to go off of, as the film wasn't screened for critics). Lautner actually speaks the line "not if I find you first," which is somewhere between "I was born ready" and "I gotta got me one of those!" on the "lines screenwriters should never used again" list.

That's why it's so surprising that as recently as last year, Abduction was listed as one of the most impressive unproduced screenplays in Hollywood. The film ranked among the 76 movies featured on 2010's "Black List"—an annual poll in which almost 300 anonymous studio executives weigh in on the most promising screenplays floating around in Hollywood. Each year's Black List—which is ordered by the number of "mentions" a script gets from the executives surveyed—is a singular opportunity to look into the minds of the people who determine which movies you can see at your local theater.