Prolific author Nicholas Sparks will debut his latest title, “Remain,” on Tuesday. While the story sticks to “The Notebook” and “A Walk to Remember” author’s bread-and-butter of romance, it explores the new-to-him horror genre. That part is thanks to Sparks’ co-author, director M. Night Shyamalan.
When the project — which included plans for Sparks and Shyamalan to write the novel “Remain” together and then debut a film, now to be led by Jake Gyllenhaal and Phoebe Dynevor, adaptation a year later — was first announced, it left some fans of both creators puzzled. At first blush, the two artists seem completely different until you think of the one thing they both prize, whether in a love or horror story: a solid twist.
And though it took until Sparks’ 25th novel for the two to try to bring their respective powers of subversion together, this was not the first chance they had had to work together.
“A long time ago, way back when ‘The Notebook’ was being adapted for the screen, they approached a writer to write the script — it was M. Night Shyamalan,” Sparks told Variety in an interview last month. “He was busy writing this movie, ‘The Sixth Sense.’ I don’t know if you’ve heard of that movie. I wonder how that eventually did?”
Jokes about Shyamalan’s most iconic work aside, Sparks added: “The original writer was Jan Sardi, and they decided to go with a new writer after that, that ended up being Jeremy Leven, but they had asked Night Shyamalan to do that. So we had been aware of each other’s career for a long time.”
Releasing Tuesday from Penguin Random House, “Remain” centers on New York architect Tate Donovan as he arrives in Cape Cod to design his best friend’s summer home and is hoping to make a fresh start, per the publisher’s description. Recently discharged from an upscale psychiatric facility where he was treated for acute depression, Tate is still wrestling with the pain of losing his beloved sister, Sylvia. Her deathbed revelation — that she can see spirits who are still tethered to the living world, a gift that runs in their family — sits uneasily with Tate, who struggles to believe in more than what reason can explain. But when he takes up residence at a historic bed-and-breakfast on the Cape, he encounters a beautiful young woman named Wren who will challenge every assumption he has about his logical and controlled world.
Sparks and Shyamalan began the project by each pitching an idea to each other for something that dabbled in both of their genres. The two decided to use Shyamalan’s idea, and Sparks set out on the manuscript for the novel “Remain” while Shyamalan wrote the screenplay. (Sparks says he’s leaving the door open to potentially move forward with the other concept, which he had pitched: “If this all works, and we’re in between projects we might do mine. It’s a good love story, little scary.”)
Sparks finished writing the book in January 2024, and Shyamalan wrapped production on the Jake Gyllenhaal and Phoebe Dynevor-led film adaptation this summer, on track for an October 2026 release.
As a project like this is a minefield for spoilers, Sparks has little he can say before “Remain” releases, but teases a few things — one being that “when you read the book, the last page is a little bit of a wink to Night and his past work.”
The other is that when you finished Sparks and Shyamalan’s “Remain” novel, you shouldn’t automatically assume the twist will be the same as the one that’s in Shyamalan’s film version next fall.
“Will they? I will tell you that one of the questions I asked Night about is, do you want the ending to be the same? Do you want the twist to be the same?” Sparks said. “And we made a decision about that. You’ve gotta read the book and see the movie.”
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