James Frey, the U.S. author notorious for his fictitious memoir A Million Little Pieces, has signed a deal to create a series of young adult sci-fi novels.

HarperCollins Children's Books will publish I Am Number Four, a project of Frey and Jobie Hughes, a recent graduate of the creative writing program at Columbia University.

And Hollywood is already interested. Dreamworks Studios has bought film rights to the series and Michael Bay, director of Transformers, has plans to produce.

The first book will focus on a group of alien teens who travel to Earth after their home planet is attacked by invaders.

"The authors have created a rich and imaginative world filled with action-packed suspense that will captivate teen readers," HarperCollins Children's Books said in a release.

Frey became famous after his drug addiction memoir A Million Little Pieces was selected by talk show host Oprah Winfrey. He went on to become infamous when it turned out large parts of the story were fictional.

However, Frey published a novel, Bright Shiny Morning, last year.

Frey is said to have had the inspiration for the new series, while Hughes is doing much of the writing.