With his “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” blowing up the box office to the tune of $200 million in just five days of release, Michael Bay could probably get his grocery list turned into a $200 million dollar movie this week. But instead, he’s attached to produce and possibly direct “I Am Number Four”, the first installment in a six-book science fiction series that has yet to be published. Bay apparently liked the idea so much he brought the book over the Dreamworks, and now Steven Spielberg is expected to produce the movie (and possible franchise) along with Bay.
Variety says the franchise is about a group of nine Earthbound alien teens who escaped their planet just before it was destroyed by a hostile species. While the high school-aged kids assimilate (“Hi, I’m Zork, I’m from a planet that just blew up, wanna go out?”), the title character discovers that he is being hunted by the enemy that blew up his planet. Basically what happened to me back in middle school. Minus the whole planet blowing up part, I mean. Anyways.
The idea for the franchise certainly sounds teen-friendly, and being that this is fiction, I don’t suppose we should have any issues with one of its authors being the notorious James Frey. If you’ll recall, Frey is the novelist who wrote a “true story memoir” about his addiction called “A Million Little Pieces”, only to have it come out that he made the whole thing up. Apparently this dude didn’t get tarred and feathered and sent to Tibet as originally planned, but was skulking around Hollywood all this time. Only in Hollywood, baby.
Below: “Alien kids from outer space, blown up planets — I swear, all true! Scout’s honor!”
