Author and producer Nicholas Sparks discusses his collaboration with M. Night Shymalan and a resulting movie  with Jake Gyllenhaal and Phoebe Dynevor - video Dailymotion

Variety

Author and producer Nicholas Sparks discusses his collaboration with M. Night Shymalan and a resulting movie  with Jake Gyllenhaal and Phoebe Dynevor

Transcript

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.

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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