i am number four

Last June the all-around Baytastic Michael Bay became attached as both a producer and director to a new DreamWorks project called I Am Number Four based off an unpublished book by James Frey and Joby Hughes. No one's read the book yet, but it's general description as the story of an alien who seeks refuge from his planet's enemy by posing as a human high school student seemed better suited to the likes of Shawn "Night at the Museum" Levy than Michael "I Blow Everything Up" Bay. So it's of little surprise that the Hollywood Reporter tells us that the studio has gone with another recent collaborator in place of the always busy Bay: Eagle Eye's D.J. Caruso.

Bay will remain on the picture as a producer, but it'll be Caruso who is calling the shots from a script written by Smallville creators Al Gough and Miles Millar. And if you're wondering why the name James Frey sounds so familiar, he's the stand up chap who made headlines in 2006 when his memories about crack addiction, A Million Little Pieces, were revealed by The Smoking Gun to be more than a little fictitious.

I guess I won't hold that against Frey seeing as he's made the move to full-blown fiction, but I suspect that DreamWorks and company will play up the "Written by the guys who brought you that fun Superman show" angle over the "Based on a new book by that guy who lied to everyone" approach. Frey and Hughes planned I am Number Four to be the first in a six-part series, though it's unclear at this point if the film version encompasses the first book of aliens-in-high-school or beyond.

With Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen absolutely demolishing the box office this week (it took in another $28 million on Thursday), Variety reports that DreamWorks is looking to pick up the film rights to the first book in an as-yet-unpublished six-book series for Michael Bay to produce and potentially direct. The book, titled I Am Number Four, tells of a group of earthbound alien teens who escaped their planet just as another hostile species was destroying it. Now, as they attempt to settle in and build new lives for themselves on earth, the main character discovers that he is being hunted by the same enemy that blew up his home planet.

The most surprising aspect of this whole thing is that while the book was being shopped around under a pseudonym, sources are saying that James Frey (the controversial author behind A Million Little Pieces) is one of the writers. (Hey, at least this time they're coming right out and saying it's a work of fiction.) Like Transformers, this deal puts Michael Bay back in business with Steven Spielberg, and the latter will most likely operate as an executive producer (or take on a "godfather role", as Variety calls it). I'd be curious to learn more about the series, as well as whether Bay directing could delay (or even squash) a potential third Transformers movie.

Discuss: Is it just me, or does the whole teenage aliens on earth in high school feel a little too Twilight-ish for the hardcore genre fan?