The wait is over!
NBC's Today premiered the Paper Towns trailer Thursday. Adapted from John Green's beloved novel (which debuted at No. 5 on the New York Times bestseller list and won the 2009 Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Mystery), the movie stars Nat Wolff as Quentin "Q" Jacobsen. He falls for the girl next door, Margo Roth Spiegelman (Cara Delevingne), but by the time they reach high school, they run in different circles. To Q's surprise, Margo appears at his window one night and asks him to help her seek revenge on the school's popular crowd. The next morning, Margo goes missing, and Q is determined to find her.
Wolff played Augustus' best friend Isaac in 2014's The Fault in Our Stars, the first of Green's novels to be adapted for the big screen. The film, starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort as cancer-stricken teen lovers, earned more than $300 million worldwide and resulted in seven MTV Movie Award nominations.
Green was so impressed with Wolff's performance in TFIOS that he was the first to be hired for Paper Towns. Six months later, Delevingne joined the cast. Jake Schreier directed the 20th Century Fox film.
The author was initially hesitant about casting supermodel Delevingne, 22. "When I heard she was auditioning, it was like, 'No.' Of course I thought that was crazy," Green, 37, tells USA Today. "But then I saw the audition. She understood Margo in ways that no one I have ever met understands Margo."
Filming began in North Carolina in November 2014, and Wolff immediately bonded with his co-stars Austin Abrams and Justice Smith, who play Q's best friends Ben Starling and Marcus "Radar" Lincoln, respectively. "We called each other by (our) characters' names," Wolff says. "We hung out constantly."
"We thought about the movie all the time," Wolf, 20, adds. "This world became kind of real. And then it's over. Sometimes it's easier to shake a character. But I almost wanted Paper Towns to be my life."
The film also stars Cara Buono as Connie Jacobsen, Caitlin Carver as Becca Arrington, Jim Coleman as Otis Warren, Meg Crosbie as Ruthie Spiegelman, Griffin Freeman as Jase, Tom Hillmann as Mr. Spiegelman, Susan Macke Miller as Mrs. Spiegelman, Halston Sage as Lacey Pemberton and Jaz Sinclair as Angela.
Paper Towns is in theaters July 24.
(E! and NBC are both members of the NBCUniversal family.)