Josh Boone

Biography

It took Josh Boone years to break through as a screenwriter and director, but he finally made it when he put his heart and soul into his work. This was especially true with the big screen adaptation of John Green's 2012 young adult novel The Fault in Our Stars, the moving story of two teenagers with cancer falling in love. 

Josh Boone was born on April 5, 1979, in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Boone was well-read growing up and wanted to be a serious novelist when he became an adult. (He wrote one pivotal scene that wound up in his first film while he was still in high school). 

Before writing and directing his debut feature "Stuck in Love" (2012), Boone wrote screenplays for ten years while working at DB Cooper's, a record store in Burbank, CA, which gave him plenty of time to write while listening to music. 

Boone wrote in several genres, including political thriller and science fiction, but he didn't become successful until he started getting more personal with his stories, drawing inspiration from Cameron Crowe's idiosyncratic romantic comedies like "Say Anything" (1989) and "Singles" (1992). 

Before filming "Stuck In Love," which was originally called "Writers," Boone discovered the novel he would later adapt, John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, in a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Wilmington, NC. Boone had lost a close friend to cancer, and the book helped him cope with the tragedy. Boone knew the book was a bestseller, but he didn't know the author had a big fan base. 

He couldn't see it as a movie at first, but when he was shown the adaptation by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, Boone was sold. Fans loved the movie, which starred Shailene Woodley right as she was becoming a major movie star, and rising young actor Ansel Elgort.