Following the success of The Fault in Our Stars, we can expect to see several more John Green adaptations hitting screens in the coming years. The next of these will be Paper Towns, an adaptation of Green’s novel about four friends who go on a road trip to find a missing girl. But for fans of that novel, one key scene will be noticeably missing from the film: the one at SeaWorld.
Green’s book features a scene where the main characters, Quentin (played in the film by Nat Wolff) and Margo (Cara Delevingne), break into the SeaWorld park in Florida because Margo says that it’s the only theme park she has not yet broken into. Apparently, writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber have cut that scene from the film’s script, substituting Orlando’s SunTrust building in its place.
The reason for the change will become clear when we remember that Green wrote the book in 2008, several years before the release of the Blackfish documentary about SeaWorld. Since Blackfish came out, SeaWorld has seen a marked decrease in attendance, the loss of performers, and the recent resignation of its CEO Jim Atchison. It’s of little surprise that a film directed primarily at adolescents would not want to associate itself with, or promote, such a controversial company as SeaWorld.
While the decisions makes sense in light of Blackfish, one does have to wonder how changing SeaWorld to SunTrust (a bank) will affect the narrative of Paper Towns. Breaking into a bank building just does not have the same cache as breaking into a theme park. Still, I suppose that the scriptwriters know their material the best.
Paper Towns will mark the second of John Green’s books to be made into a movie, and probably not the last. Right now it is set to premiere in June 2015