Nicholas Sparks created the stories that brought us some of our favorite book adaptations, including Notebook And A walk to remember. He is currently collaborating with director M. Night Shyamalan, who has given us such thrillers as Signs And Sixth sense, For Staya recently released novel and an upcoming film starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Phoebe Dynevor.
Through his film agent, Sparks came up with the idea of working with Shyamalan. At the first meeting, each of them told a story that could promote a potential partnership.
“In that meeting, relatively quickly, we both decided, let’s do Knight’s idea,” Sparks said. Yahoo. “We spent the next hour thinking about some details of the story: who is the main character? What does he do for a living?
“I think it took over a year and finally Knight called me and said, ‘I think I’ll make this my next movie,’ which means he’ll write it, direct it and produce it. And at that moment I didn’t know what I would do. Am I going to write a story? Am I going to write a story? Am I going to write a novel? I didn't know. But once Knight made his decision… I went ahead and decided And that was it. August last year.”
What is “Stay” about?
A brilliant blend of two great storytellers. Stay is a combination of romance and the supernatural.
The story is about a New York architect named Tate Donovan who sets out to design a house for his friend in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Tate was recently released from a psychiatric hospital where he was being treated for acute depression as he dealt with the pain of losing his sister, who told Tate on her deathbed that she could see spirits.
When Tate meets a woman named Ren, they connect faster than they expected, but she also changes and challenges the way he sees the world.
“It was probably one of my favorite writing processes I’ve had in years,” Sparks said. “Writing can be a very solitary profession. You are alone, you are with your thoughts. But in this particular case, I had someone, and he had someone… who you could really bounce back and forth.”
“Knight wrote the script first and then I started working on the novel, and I remember the first thing I said after reading the script was, ‘This is amazing. It will be an amazing movie, but by the way, it won't work as a book. I need to change. I need to change something to make this movie work like the book.” And it was a lot of fun… to watch someone's creative process, especially someone I admire and respect and has been doing it as long as I have. This is really great. … There is confidence, but there is no ego.”
Stay – Nicholas Sparks, M. Night Shyamalan (Penguin Random House)
“I don’t know if there is another author who has had as much luck with casting as I have.”
Sparks found himself in a situation where he wrote the film script before the novel was released, especially in the case of Last song. The famous writer emphasized that the beauty of both mediums lies in finding different ways to tell a story.
“A novel is a story told in words, but a film is actually a story told through pictures. And in the film, almost everything has to be done in haiku style,” Sparks said. “You get straight to the point and everything about that image you see on the screen means something. And it has to be that way because you don't have the space to do what I can do in a novel. There are questions that I can answer in the novel. [in depth]because I have the opportunity for this.”
“They're different ways to tell the same story, and some things work better in a book that don't work in a film, like backstory or introspection. And some things in the film are much more effective than you can do in a novel. Something with high emotional intensity, a fight, or something dangerous, those are things you can do in just a couple of seconds on screen, and it can take you pages and pages to pull it off in a novel.”
For many films based on one of his brilliant stories, casting is incredibly specific, and Sparks emphasized that casting conversations are an “important” part of his projects.
“It's a very important conversation that I'm having with all the producers, and it's an important conversation that the producers and I are having with the studio to make sure that we get the actors that we want in the film,” Sparks said. “I was very lucky with the casting. I don’t know if there’s another writer who has had as much luck with casting over the years as I have.”
“And of course, Jake and Phoebe are extremely talented at what they do. It was great working with them and watching them work, and I'm very, very confident that people who read the novel will [who] then look at how in the film Jake inhabits Tate as a character and Phoebe inhabits Ren.”
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MARCH 14: Nicholas Sparks poses at the premiere of the new musical based on The Notebook on Broadway at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater on March 14, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Bruce Glykas/WireImage)
While the release of shows and films such as In the summer when I became beautiful, we were liars And I'm sorry about you have made film adaptations of books particularly popular right now, Sparks is someone who has really seen these projects evolve over the decades.
Although they are still beloved by book and film lovers alike, the hype around Stay and the interest in this collaboration with Shyamalan illustrates how beloved Sparks is and his compelling development as a storyteller.
