Newbie YA stars
Austin Abrams, Halston Sage, and Justice Smith have all joined the cast of the next John Green adaptation, Paper Towns. Starring The Fault in Our Stars’ Nat Wolff, the story focuses on two friends who make a pact to take revenge on anyone who has caused them harm, until one of them goes missing. Abrams, Sage, and Smith will play friends Ben, Lacy, and Rader, respectively.
Will Arnett will return as voice of the titular character in Lego Movie spin-off, Lego Batman, as will Roy Lee, Dan Lin, Phil Lord, and Christopher Miller. This is one of three new Lego movies to come out of the first film’s mega success both critically and financially. The other two are Ninjago and Lego Movie 2.
IN DEVELOPMENT
Some hot off the presses YA Novel Adaptation news:
Girls doyenne Lena Dunham has announced her intention to direct the adaptation she is currently penning, of Karen Cushman’s 1994 YA novel Catherine, Called Birdy. The story, set in 1290s England, follows a 12-year-old girl who desires to scare off any potential suitors. “I just need to find someone who wants to fund a PG-13 Medieval movie,” Lena said, as quoted by Variety.
Warner Bros. is developing an adaptation of Jandy Nelson’s YA book I’ll Give You the Sun, which follows a pair of twins pulled apart by a senseless tragedy. Natalie Krinsky, writer and story editor on the CW’s Gossip Girl (also based on a YA book series), and Fox’s Red Band Society, is being tapped to write.
Lionsgate Films is putting together an adaptation of R.J. Palacio’s Wonder, a YA drama that follows a boy with facial deformities who is bullied when he starts attending school with others in the fifth grade. John Krokidas, who directed Daniel Radcliffe in Kill Your Darlings, has signed on to helm the film.
And in reboot territory, it looks like Ghostbusters 3 might finally gain some real traction. The Heat’s director Paul Feig is set to helm the update, which is said to feature an all-female cast of ‘busters. Katie Dippold, writer of The Heat, is taking a stab at the script.
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