Author and producer Nicholas Sparks discusses his collaboration with M. Night Shymalan and a resulting movie with Jake Gyllenhaal and Phoebe Dynevor
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00:00You're doing this with M. Night Shyamalan.
00:02I am.
00:04Both masters of twists, but I normally think of you in very different genres for those twists.
00:08So how did this partnership come about, and what are you looking to do with this?
00:12Are you trying to reach a different audience?
00:13Are you both trying to reach a larger audience?
00:15Yeah, it was really interesting.
00:16It was an idea from my agent, Howie Sanders, who's in the back over there.
00:20I've worked with him 25 years, and he likes to do new things.
00:24He said, hey, let's get you together with M. Night Shyamalan.
00:26And so nothing, okay, sure, why not?
00:31So a year passes or so.
00:33Didn't think a second again about it.
00:35He says, okay, you're going to have a meeting with Night in a month.
00:39You come up with an original story that you think will fit his audience and yours.
00:45I said, okay, and he's going to do the same thing.
00:48So we went up there.
00:49We met for a couple of hours.
00:51I told him my story.
00:53He told me his story.
00:54In that very first meeting, we said, okay, let's do yours.
00:59We've decided to do Night's idea.
01:01Okay.
01:01So we started hashing out ideas about this.
01:05At that time, I was only committed to a short story because I didn't know whether he was going to write and direct and produce or just produce.
01:14So if he's just going to produce, I'm just going to do a short story.
01:17A year passes.
01:19I think we met in May.
01:21I don't know.
01:21The following year in August, he said, wow, I think this is going to be my next story.
01:27I'm going to write, direct, and produce.
01:30And so I said, okay, well, I guess I'm going to write up a novel.
01:35And he started with the screenplay.
01:37He wrote that and started September or something like that.
01:42Finished right around October 11th.
01:45Sent me a copy of the script.
01:46It was very much the story that we had discussed.
01:50And so then beginning, that was October 11th, starting October 12th, I started writing the novel.
01:56Finished it January 29th.
01:58It's, of course, different than the film.
02:00But it's the same general story, but it's a different medium.
02:04So there are differences you have to do.
02:08We have the cover that was just announced.
02:10As far as I know, the film starts filming sometime in June, I think, in Rhode Island.
02:16And the novel will come out October 7th.
02:22And then the film will be released sometime in 2026, I'm guessing.
02:26And that's starring Jake Gyllenhaal?
02:28That is starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Phoebe Deniver.
02:31Yeah.