‘The Fault in Our Stars’ To Begin Filming August 26

July 11, 2013

POST-GAZETTE – “Lights, camera, action” are words some Pittsburghers might hear on the street in the months to come.”

The Fault in Our Stars,” a new film from writer-director Josh Boone, will be shot on location in Pittsburgh starting Aug. 26, according to Dawn Keezer, director of the Pittsburgh Film Office.

Mr. Boone, who wrote and directed last year’s family drama “Stuck in Love,” will direct the film based on a screenplay adapted by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, who previously collaborated on the script for 2009’s “(500) Days of Summer.”

Mr. Neustadter and Mr. Weber have adapted “The Fault in Our Stars” from the best-selling novel by John Green about two teenagers, terminally ill Hazel Grace Lancaster and ex-basketball player and amputee Augustus Waters, who meet and fall in love while attending a support group for children with cancer.

Although the novel takes place in Indianapolis, the film won’t be shot there. The Pittsburgh scenes will be used for Hazel Grace Lancaster’s house, according to the Internet Movie Data Base. Other filming locations include Amsterdam.

Playing the lead roles are Shailene Woodley (“The Descendants”) as Hazel and newcomer Ansel Elgort as Augustus. Mr. Elgort will also star in this fall’s remake of “Carrie,” a teen horror film based on the Stephen King novel.

“Stars” marks the first film to be shot in Pittsburgh in 2013. Members of the Pennsylvania film industry, who rely on outside productions using the state’s locations, had to wait for the start of the new fiscal year to learn the status of the state’s tax credits for film and TV projects in order to open offices and hire local people, according to Ms. Keezer. The state legislature, contrary to what many in the state’s film industry wanted, voted to keep the tax credit cap at $60 million.

Now, people in the film industry will begin to head back to work. “This is step one in that process,” Ms. Keezer said, adding that the film tax credit program is a key reason films are attracted to southwestern Pennsylvania.

“The Fault in Our Stars” is scheduled for release in 2015 and will be distributed by Fox 2000 Pictures, a division of 20th Century Fox.