John Green’s Looking for Alaska Will Be a Movie

For those aching to see more of John Green’s work on the big screen post-The Fault In Our Stars, we have good news: Paramount has signed actress and filmmaker Sarah Polley to adapt Green’s first novel Looking for Alaska into a movie.

The book, which was published in 2005, centers on Miles, a young boy starting at a boarding school where he meets the beautiful and troubled Alaska Young, who captivates him along with most of the other boys at school. Unsurprisingly, considering this is a John Green story, there’s also a good deal of tragedy in Alaska.

The news that Looking for Alaska — which had been optioned for the big screen shortly after it was published, but had since stalled — is finally going to happen is likely as exciting for fans as it is for Green himself. The author tweeted the news early Thursday morning:

He has good reason to be excited. Polley, who has won accolades as an actress, director and screenwriter, is a great choice to adapt Looking for Alaska. Her directorial debut was the much-praised 2006 film, Away From Her, which she actually adapted from the famous Alice Munro short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain.” In addition to Away From Her, Polley has also directed 2011’s Take This Waltz and 2012’s Stories We Tell, a documentary about her own family history.

Looking For Alaska will mark the third Green book to move to the big screen, as Paper Towns, his 2008 novel, is also set to be adapted by the same producers and screenwriters who worked on The Fault in Our Stars. All in all, it’s a great time to be a John Green fan.