(500) Days of Hazel

At over a month old, this is actually old news, especially by internet standards, but somehow, it has just come to my attention that Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, the talented scribes who wrote (500) Days of Summer, have been tapped by Fox 2000 to adapt John Green's wonderful novel The Fault in Our Stars. 

The novel follows sixteen year-old cancer patient Hazel, who finds love in the form of roguish, articulate Augustus as she contemplates the meaning of life and the reality of loss in ways that no young person should have to.  In Hazel, Green has crafted a narrator with such a startlingly clear voice: honest, bright, romantic, but never cloying or sentimental.  There's a brutal reality that tinges even her more starry-eyed moments, and I can't wait to see how these talented screenwriters bring her voice to the big screen.  The use of narration in (500) Days gives me hope that, if employed here, the device would work well and help to shape the audience's perception through the lens of Hazel.  It's important to keep that perspective when adapting a book with a strong narrator; otherwise, the best you can hope for is something colorless but fine like The Hunger Games.

There's no casting news or release window set yet, but I will be sure to keep my eyes open for any more news about this incredibly exciting project.