Jason Segel revealed yesterday that he has written a series of three young adult novels and that he hopes to have the first one released later this year. Segel spoke about the books for the first time last night at a Forgetting Sarah Marshall screening and Q&A hosted by filmmaker Jonathan Demme in Pleasantville, New York. The book series, which is currently the subject of a bidding war between publishing houses, is based on Segel’s first screenplay for a kids adventure movie, which he sold to a movie studio for “super cheap†when he was 21 because he “didn’t know any better.†Segel bought the script back from the studio in 2011 and, at the time, said he intended to make it into a movie:
“It sat on a shelf and they didn’t know that it was the same Jason Segel. I came to them because the contract was up and I went to buy it up and they were like, ‘No, wait, that was you? That was your script?’ And I was like, ‘Yep, sorry dudes.’ So I now own it and I want to make it. It’s a kids adventure movie in the style of Goonies or Labyrinth … I don’t want anyone to steal [the idea] yet. There are parts I could play, but I’d be happy to just produce it. It’s a really cool kids adventure story and there could be puppets involved. I have an idea for a type of puppet I’ve never seen before.â€
Segel is still being pretty secretive about the plot to the series, teasing yesterday that “It’s about kids facing their biggest fears, that’s about all I can tell you.†While he’s shifted from turning the unproduced script from a movie into a series of young adult novels, said novels could very well end up being the basis for a movie if they prove to be popular after publication. So, Jason Segel will probably be the first young adult author whose penis has been seen by millions of Americans, right?