'Paper Towns' buzz occupies BookCon

NEW YORK — Throngs of screaming teenage girls packed the Javits Center auditorium Saturday night, but BookCon's Paper Towns panel was a total boys' club.

After the explosive success of teen-cancer romance The Fault in our Stars last summer, another novel by bestselling author John Green is getting the big-screen treatment: Paper Towns, out July 24, about a high-school boy (Nat Wolff) who goes in search of his dream girl (Cara Delevingne) after she goes missing.

On-hand to discuss the upcoming film, moderator Kathleen Heaney (of Elvis Duran and the Morning Show) was joined onstage by Green, director Jake Schreier, screenwriter Michael H. Weber, composer Ryan Lott, and actors Wolff (as protagonist Quentin) and Justice Smith (best friend Radar). The close-knit group kept it light and laugh-filled as they discussed the anticipated movie, which is not at all Fault 2.0, Green reassured.

"The stories are so different," he told the crowd. While the Fault set was "a lovely place to go, every day was extremely, relentlessly sad." Paper, on the other hand, "has sad moments, funny moments, there are mystery elements. It was a very different kind of place to be every day. There was so much laughter, and I genuinely just loved watching Justice and Nat talk to each other."

While the film does take some liberties with the story, they are "choices that preserve the spirit of the book" and "are hopefully better for the movie," Weber said. Added Green: "I'm more concerned about preserving the themes. It's really hard to make a movie about how bad young men are at imagining young women. ... We do girls a disservice by putting them on a pedestal or romanticizing them," and "that idea was what was most important to us to preserve."

Heaney and the Paper crew regularly flitted in and out of spoiler territory, presuming that most in the 2,000-seat space had already read the book. Asked if he could date Delevingne's mischievous but melancholy character in real life, Wolff said, "I could date the girl at the end of the book." As for Quentin and Margo hypothetically dating a year after the book ends? "Books belong to their readers!" Wolff shrieked, in a joking tirade met with uproarious laughter from the crowd.

Ultimately, not much news came out of the event. The Paper soundtrack is out June 16, and will feature a contribution by Wolff and his brother, Alex (the two have a pop-music duo, simply called Nat and Alex Wolff). Brief clips were shown of a new trailer (premiering during Pretty Little Liars next week) and a short scene from the film (in which Quentin shaves an eyebrow off school bully Chuck while he's asleep).

But the funniest revelation came from Green, who confirmed he shot a small role that made it into the the movie (unlike a Fault cameo, which got cut).

Leaning on the cast for acting tips, "I really reached out very broadly for this part," Green cracked. "I got really deep in my character, and I think I delivered a ... usable performance."