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John Green's 'Looking for Alaska' to be adapted to film

"The Fault in Our Stars" author announced that Sarah Polley has been chosen by Paramount to write and direct a film based on his YA book, 'Looking for Alaska.'

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AP Photo/Richard Drew
John Green, author of "The Fault in Our Stars" and "Looking for Alaska" poses during an interview in New York on Monday, June 2, 2014.

John Green, author of "The Fault in Our Stars," announced on his twitter page last night that his novel "Looking for Alaska" will be adapted into a film sometime in the near future.

Green tweeted, "So excited to announce that the brilliant filmmaker Sarah Polley will be writing and directing a film adaptation of Looking for Alaska."

"Alaska," published in 2005 is a comedy/drama about love and loss in a boarding school in Green's native Alabama.

According to Variety, Paramount purchased the film rights to Green's book in 2005 with a different writer and director slated for the movie, which then stalled for several years. The sudden announcement of forward motion comes as no surprise, however, considering the recent success of the movie adaptation of John Green's "The Fault in Our Stars," a film with a $12 million dollar budget that made $48.2 million in its first weekend alone, according to Forbes.

John Green expressed his approval of Polley's appointment to the project, tweeting that "I'm a HUGE fan of Sarah's movies, and her ideas about Looking for Alaska are really wonderful, and I am SO VERY EXCITED."

Canadian director and actress Sarah Polley received accolades for her 2006 directorial debut, “Away From Her,” including an Oscar nomination for the script she wrote herself, according to Variety. Her most recent film is the acclaimed "Stories We Tell," a documentary about her own family.

This will be the third John Green book to hit the big screens, according to Time. His 2008 novel "Paper Towns" is tentatively set to be be released in 2015 by the same producers and screenwriters that adapted "The Fault in Our Stars."

A release date for "Looking for Alaska" has not been set.

Weston Williams is a Monitor contributor.

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