The Fault in Our Stars seems to be the latest book-to-film adaption.
The book follows the story of Hazel Grace Lancaster, a terminally Ill sufferer of Thyroid cancer and Metastatis on her lungs since she was 13, and has so far lived with her disease because of an experimental drug called Phalanxifor. She is forced by her parents to go to a weekly support group for kids with cancer, and there she has become friends with Isaac, who lost an eye due to cancer at a young age. Isaac brings his best friend, Augustus Waters, to the support group. August is a sufferer too, after losing his leg to osteosarcoma and was once a basketball star, but now is in remission. Joined together by the love of a book, Hazel and ‘Gus’ begin to spend more and more time together. Hazel begins to pull away from Gus as they become closer, because she wants to spare him the pain that her eventual death will cause him, as he lost his former girlfriend to cancer. Gus had spared his wish from ‘The Genies’ (a fictional Make a Wish Foundation) and wanted to use it to fly himself and Hazel to Amsterdam to meet Peter Van Houton, the author of the book they both passionately loved.
Written by John Green, (author of Paper Towns and Looking for Alaska) The Fault In Our Stars won the Indians Author Award in 2012 and won the Children’s Choice Award this year. As well as this, the book reached number one on a New York Times Best Seller list with the same book in January 2012. He was inspired to write The Fault in Our Stars by his work in a children’s hospital. John Green is also well known for his vlogging, mostly with his brother Hank, with whom he set up Crash Course, which was intented to educate watchers about World History and Biology, however this was later expanded to other subjects.
The film rights are owned by Fox 2000 in January 2012, and on February 19, 2013, it was announced that Josh Boone would be directing the film. Shailene Wood was chosen to portray Hazel. She has been in The Descendants (which she won 9 film awards for) and is a part of Divergent (set to be premièred in 2014,) also holding the lead role in the TV show The Secret Life of the American Teenager (121 episodes, 2008-2013.) When she was 15, she was diagnosed with Scholiosis and was put in a chest-to-hips plastic brace to straighten her spine.
Ansel Elgort will play Augustus. He was also in the film Divergent, and will also star in the horror film Carrie (both to be released in 2014.) Nathan Wolff has the role of Isaac, and Willem Dafoe will play the role of Peter Van Houton. Dafoe has been in many films, including Platoon and Spider Man, as well as having voice roles in Fantastic Mr Fox and Finding Nemo. Filming began on August 26, 2013 on location in Pittsburgh, and some filming will be done in Amsterdam (due to the trip to see Van Houlton.)
The book was extremely well received by critics and readers alike, and it is hoped that the book will meet the expectations of all, as there is always a lot of pressure of a book-to-film adaptation to fit to the book.
More will be revealed in all good time.
Follow Leah on Twitter!