Influx in young Amsterdam tourism with Fault in Our Stars film predicted

By Maxime Zech on June 13, 2014 - 13:45
John Green
. (John Green reading The Fault in Our Stars. Source: Flickr/genevieve719)

John Green's novel The Fault in Our Stars is topping book charts worldwide, and is even the number one sold book on Bol.com's Top 100 English Books list. Now, the book's film adaptation is set to be the hit if the summer for young adults. Many of the film's locations are set in Amsterdam, which means that the city might experience fan tourists visiting the locations. 

John Green has a wide internet presence, and is very popular on Tumblr where blog posts about the novel have been circulating since the book's release in 2012 with the tag . The tag has also been trending on Twitter for months.

The film even got an 82 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and topped the US box office with $48.2 million, beating Tom Cruise's Edge of Tomorrow and Angelina Jolie's Maleficent.

The trailer for The Fault in Our Stars has been seen at least 20 million times on YouTube, and shows many of the locations used in Amsterdam including the Anne Frank House and a bench along the Bloemgracht. According to Het Parool, some dedicated fans have taken to the blogosphere to map out the Amsterdam locations.

John Green has published several books before, including Looking for Alaska. The Fault in Our Stars, however, has by far been the most popular and widely discussed story of his, and of the last few years. According to J, he believes his fans are to thank for his success. "You see a lot of people screaming at their friends to read my books, and making art about the books, and animating quotations from them, and so on. I am just really lucky in this respect. I do not understand this, and I wish I did, because I'd like to see it happen more often with more books."

The story is narrated by a 16-ear old cancer patient, Hazel, who attends a support group where she meets 17-year old Augustus Waters, and falls in love. They visit Amsterdam to search for mysterious actor Peter van Houten, who wrote Hazel's favorite book.

The film was directed by Josh Boone and stars Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort and Nat Wolff. It also stars Dutch actress Lotte Verbeek. The film was released last Friday, the 6th of June to a crowd, according to The New Yorker's review, of bawling spectators. The film will be in Dutch cinemas from the 10th of July.

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