Time to see if John Green is a one-hit wonder, or the real deal.
You’re watching Beyond The Trailer’s review of Paper Towns...
The Fault in Our Stars was a pop culture PHENOMENON. The hotly anticipated novel stormed the box
office with a number one debut of almost fifty million, rivaling flashier fellow young adult
adaptations like The Hunger Games, Divergent and The Maze Runner. The twelve million dollar
teen weepie went on to earn over three hundred million worldwide, and actually managed to
beat out fan favorite movies The Hunger Games and Guardians of the Galaxy for Best Picture
at the MTV Movie Awards. Shailene Woodley also beat out Jennifer Lawrence for Best Female
Performance, and Woodley and Ansel Elgort won Best Kiss as well. Now Hollywood loves
a bandwagon, so naturally John Green’s remaining novels were either snapped up or - if studios
already owned the film rights - were hurried into production. The film rights to Paper
Towns were acquired by Fox right before the studio release The Fault in Our Stars, obviously
very confident in the film already. Hoping that lightning will strike twice, Paper Towns
has the same producers and screenwriters as The Fault in Our Stars, and promotes Nat Wolff
from best friend to male lead. But that’s perhaps the biggest question mark here - are
Nat Wolff and Cara Delevingne as big a draw as Woodley and Elgort? The industry is predicting
“no”, with Paper Towns expected to open with about twenty million less - and that
Pixels opening the same weekend will take the number one spot instead. But The Fault
in Our Stars didn’t have a lot of staying power at the box office - dropping more than
sixty percent in its second weekend - while word of mouth could make Paper Towns a sleeper
hit. And as Green, or at least Hollywood, hopes to build him into a brand, not every
movie needs to be a homerun - securing a few bases will do.
Paper Towns just needs to not be a STRIKE...