'Super 8' Kid Joel Courtney Goes Down South for 'Tom Sawyer'

From Next Movie:

Teaming up with an A-List producer or director for your very first starring role is not a bad way to start an acting career. Just ask Joel Courtney, the lead kid in J.J. Abrams' "Super 8," who's currently in the beginning stages of racking up every male tween role from here to the end of the Mississippi.

This is known as the "Hailee Steinfeld Effect."

Courtney will ride the success of the sci-fi coming of age tale into one of the most well-known youngster roles in history: Tom Sawyer. The actor will star in writer/director Jo Kastner's new adaptation of "Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn," reports Variety, which is gearing up to shoot this August.

The mischievous character is a creation of legendary American author Mark Twain and appeared in a handful of novels. Which stories Kastner's new movie will cover is unknown, but expect plenty of steamboats, white picket fences and Southern drawl.

The article also reveals that Courtney is in negotiations to join the supernatural thriller "The Healer." In the film, the young actor will play a disgruntled teen who joins his father on a camping trip on to have a run-in with otherworldly forces.

Courtney gained a lot of leverage from his role in "Super 8" and we expect "Tom Sawyer" and "The Healer" to be only the beginning of his lengthy career. So, seriously -- what movie can he do with Hailee Steinfeld?