Well, we didn’t see this one coming: According to THR, Twilight‘s Taylor Lautner will be starring for Gus Van Sant in an untitled indie drama. Only described as “a small-budget film based on a nonfiction article in The New Yorker magazine that Lautner has optioned,” this is sure to be a very different turn for an actor who’s made his name in a series that mostly requires him to not wear a shirt. Needless to say, he’s an unexpected choice for a man who once directed a film that spent most of its 90 minute runtime on Casey Affleck and Matt Damon wandering around the desert.

But it’s this odd juxtaposition between director and star that’s only giving me a higher-than-normal interest in another Van Sant movie. Of course, it’s also doing the impossible by making me remotely intrigued by something starring Lautner. More information, such as a screenwriter and possibly a title, is expected to pop up during the week; you can bet we’ll be covering it then. Shooting is expected to start early next year, so it might be reasonable to expect this one to hit before 2012′s end.

How could a collaboration between Lautner and Van Sant work out in your mind?