Green spoke to Entertainment Weekly about viewing the film trailer for the first time and, sounding a bit like a giddy fan himself, said: “I couldn’t let myself feel anything other than anxiety until the last frame of the trailer where says ‘okay.’ Then I was like, yeaaaaah! I really loved it. The author made several visits to the film’s Pittsburgh set to get to know the stars and to see them embody his characters.
No one knows better than Green how important it is to his fans that the movie remain loyal to the book. The author’s fans even adopted a name for themselves – Nerdfighters – after Green coined the term in a 2007 on-camera riff. In January 2013, Green and his brother, with whom he collaborates on the vlogbrothers YouTube channel, held a celebration at Carnegie Hall for the one-year anniversary of TFIOS, which included guest authors and musical performances. Green has a reputation for being readily available to his fans, with his multimedia appearances routinely selling out venues. Much of the book’s popularity can be traced back to the author himself. Naturally, for the legions who adore the book, expectations are sky-high. Co-stars include Laura Dern as Hazel Grace’s mother and Willem Dafoe as Peter Van Houten, the author whom Hazel Grace and Augustus idolize and seek out. The 20th Century Fox/Temple Hill Entertainment film stars Shailene Woodley as Hazel Grace Lancaster and Ansel Elgort as Augustus Waters. The highly anticipated movie adaptation of John Green’s story, about two intellectual and playfully offbeat teenagers who meet in a cancer support group and fall in love, will be released on June 6.
With more than seven million copies in print since its 2012 publication and an enormous popularity among young (and not-so-young) readers, The Fault in Our Stars (Dutton) has attained such a status. TheAtlantic.It’s not every day that a realistic, standalone YA novel develops a voracious cult following. Hazel is a fictional character, and she is in many important ways very different from the person Esther was." Īuthor John Green also drew inspiration for the book from his time spent working as a student chaplain at a children's hospital. All that said, I really don't want to seem to be appropriating Esther's story, which belongs to her and to her family and not to me. But she was also silly and funny and totally normal. "What inspired me most," says Green, "was Esther's unusual mix of teenagerness and empathy: She was a very outwardly focused person, very conscious of and attentive to her friends and family.
"So much of the story was inspired by her and my friendship with her and my affection for her family and friends," says author John Green, "but I didn't take very many specific things (except for superficial stuff like the oxygen and whatnot)." Esther died of thyroid cancer on Augat age sixteen. The Fault in Our Stars book and subsequent movie were inspired in part by Esther Earl (pictured above, right). In addition to helping break pre-sale movie ticket records for a romantic drama, fans have created The Fault in Our Stars t-shirts and artwork like the tee above.