‘Looking For Alaska’ Movie Update: Author John Green Is Not Involved In The Adaptation

The “Looking for Alaska” movie apparently isn’t looking to the author for help. John Green wrote the award-winning young adult novel, but he recently confirmed in a vlog that he isn’t involved in the movie making process.

In Green’s video on his YouTube channel Vlogbrothers, he received a question from a fan that asked when the book would be made into a movie. “I don’t know. Maybe never,” Green said with a groan. “I sold the movie rights to a movie studio more than 10 years ago, and I have tried many, many, many times to buy them back in the intervening decade. But thus far, that hasn’t happened. They’ve tried to make a movie a bunch of times but it’s always fallen apart for one reason or another.”

“Looking for Alaska” was Green’s debut novel in 2005. It follows Miles, a student who transfers to an Alabama boarding school and meets a mysterious girl named Alaska.

Last spring, it seemed like the movie was finally moving forward. As previously reported, Becca Thomas was set to direct, Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber were going to write the script and Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen were going to be producers. Green seemed pretty excited about the announcement at the time, and he sounded confident that the movie would finally be made.

The writers and producers also worked on 2015’s “Paper Towns” and 2014’s “The Fault in Our Stars,” Green’s other book adaptations. However, it seems the movie making process for “Looking for Alaska” hasn’t turned out to be much like those films.

“At this point, I’m not involved in the project in any way,” Green told his viewers. “I’m not gonna lie, it definitely bums me out. But it also reminds me just how lucky I was to have two amazing book-to-movie experiences.”

Watch Green’s vlog below:

Green isn’t the only author to be kept out of the loop of adaptations of a successful novel. “The Mortal Instruments” author Cassandra Clare recently clarified that Freeform’s “Shadowhunters” didn’t turn to her for much input beyond the casting of a couple key characters. However, she emphasized that her lack of involvement was pretty typical. “Again on the topic of input: it is normal and not unusual for the author of the source material an adaptation is based on not to be consulted about the adaptation,” she wrote on her blog. “The exceptions get most of the attention: ‘Game of Thrones,’ ‘Outlander.’ But they are exceptions.”

The “Looking for Alaska” author echoed Clare’s comments in his video. “The truth is, authors are almost never as welcomed into the process as I was with ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ and ‘Paper Towns,’ so I try just to be grateful for that,” he said.

“Looking for Alaska” does not have a release date.