Back in the summer, word popped up of Paramount's decision to dip into the 'ol toy box again and pull out another potential action figure-to-film franchise: Max Steel. According to Variety, it looks like the studio has their eyes set on Taylor Lautner of The Twilight Saga: New Moon fame for the titular, 19-year-old superhuman secret agent. No director has been lined up yet, but writers Chad Damiani and JP Lavin (whose Capeshooters adaptation is set up at Warner Bros. with Bryan Singer producing) are working on the script.

Maybe I was just a little too old when the action figure and subsequent computer-animated TV series came out, but frankly, I don't really see the huge appeal here -- an extreme sports athlete gets infused with nanotechnology, essentially turning him into a barely legal Inspector Gadget with superpowers. Something tells me Paramount is betting on Lautner's tummy muscles to sell this concept to those outside the 10-year-old boy demographic.

Thanks to Ain't It Cool News for pointing out that YouTube is currently running the entire Max Steel series online. Enter the uncanny valley of severely dated computer animation, if you dare. Seriously, ReBoot has aged better than this.