It’s been reported that Dreamworks has preemptively bought the rights to I Am Number Four, with an eye on Michael Bay producing and possibly directing. The as-yet unpublished novel is the first in a projected six-part sci-fi series. According to The New York Times the plot of I Am Number Four is “About a group of nine children from a planet called Lorien who have been attacked by a hostile race from another planet. The nine children and their guardians evacuate to earth, where three are killed. The protagonist, a Lorien boy named John Smith, hides in Paradise, Ohio, as a human and tries to evade his predators.”
Hang on a minute, isn’t that the plot of Roswell (aka Roswell High)?
The originator of the story is James Frey,who rose to fame when his memoir about his drug addiction, A Million Little Pieces, was revealed to be partly made up. This led to a live confrontation on the Oprah Winfrey Show, where she berated the author, having once championed the novel on her Book Club.
Whether Bay does actually end up directing I Am Number Four is another matter. He’s expressed interest in doing something smaller and less explosive after Transformers 2, but who knows how he’ll feel in a couple months time. It could well be though that he just ends up producing.