After scribing and sitting behind the camera on indie Take This Waltz and documentary Stories We Tell, it may be time for actress/writer/director Sarah Polley to hit the big time. Deadline reports that Paramount is eying her to adapt Looking for Alaska, working from the novel by The Fault in Our Stars writer John Green.
Apparently, Polley, who received an Oscar nomination for her debut screenplay Away from Her, made a strong pitch to Paramount, which led to studio execs signing her to adapt. Polley may also direct the film, but that hasn’t yet been determined. Though the actress starred in Dawn of the Dead and Splice, writing and directing has taken priority for her in recent years. Both Take This Waltz and Stories We Tell received rave reviews, which likely factored into Paramount’s decision.
According to Deadline, Green’s novel, his first, centered on a “16-year-old boy named Miles Halter, who, after an antiseptic adolescence in Florida, moves to a boarding school in Alabama and learns coming of age lessons from his roommate and his beautiful and mysterious best friend, Alaska Young. She enthralls Miles with stories of adventurous and self-destructive behavior–and teaches him to drink, smoke, and plot elaborate pranks against the school’s rich preppies–but despite their adulation for her, they can tell that she is unhappy and perhaps headed for big trouble.”
The Fault in Our Stars was a huge success, grossing over $100 million on a $12 million budget, so Looking for Alaska is a top priority for Paramount. It’s perhaps not as teen-friendly a story as The Fault in Our Stars, but everything Green has been involved with is getting a lot attention in Hollywood. In addition to Looking for Alaska, his novels Paper Towns and An Abundance of Katherines are both in development, while Will Grayson Will Grayson is attracting a lot of different studios’ attention.
Tell us, do you think Polley is a good choice to bring Green’s novel to the big screen? Sound off below!
