The Cosmopolis teaser: Can Robert Pattinson raunch up his image?

The Twilight star sheds his tween-friendly rep in a darkly erotic, violent trailer for David Cronenberg's upcoming film

Robert Pattison attempts to shed his teen heartthrob image by portraying a sex-addicted, violent millionaire in the upcoming thriller "Cosmopolis."
(Image credit: Facebook/Cosmopolis)

The video: Judging from the brief teaser for Robert Pattinson's upcoming thriller Cosmopolis, Twilight's resident melter of tween hearts is beyond eager to shed his Tiger Beat image. (Watch the NSFW video below.) Based on the book by Don DeLillo, and directed by shock-master David Cronenberg (A History of Violence, Eastern Promises), Cosmopolis follows hotshot billionaire Eric Packer (Pattinson) on a debauched 24-hour odyssey through a dystopian Manhattan. In the teaser, Pattinson appears nude, is threatened at gunpoint by a naked woman, has sex in the backseat of a limo, shoots himself in the hand, and stabs a man in the face — and that's just in a 35-second clip. The film hits foreign theaters in May, while a stateside release date has yet to be announced.

The reaction: "What better way to cast off the shackles of tween-dom" than gouging another man's face and having angry sex with a string of women? says Jeremy Gordon at Black Book. If this is where Pattinson's post-Twilight career is headed, I'm on board. Definitely, says Hollywire. Pattinson is building an impressive resume of adult, anti-Twilight efforts, including the Salvador Dali biopic Little Ashes, featuring several gay sex scenes, and his role as the quintessential La Belle Epoque playboy Georges Duroy in the upcoming Bel Ami. Perhaps, says Katey Rich at Cinema Blend, but there's one small problem: "If the kid can act, we haven't seen it yet." Judge for yourself:

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