M. Night Shyamalan Is Making a Nicholas Sparks Movie, So We Read the Book

It sounds like a juxtaposition, not a logical collaboration, but Nicholas Sparks and M. Night Shyamalan have become creative partners. Remain is both a book written by Sparks, released October 14, and Shyamalan’s next movie, hitting theaters in October 2026. The project isn’t your typical big-screen adaptation, because Shyamalan and the best-selling author crafted the story together.

In Remain’s acknowledgements, Sparks writes that working with Shyamalan has been “a highlight of my career†and notes that he’s been a fan of the director’s work for years, praising the way it “[epitomizes] how supernatural stories can thrill us, move us, and inspire us to ponder universal mysteries of the human experience.â€

The author notes they discussed Remain‘s characters and its world-building as well as how the story would transform into both written and filmed versions. In a recent chat with Variety, Sparks revealed that they each pitched the other an idea that “dabbled in both of their genres.†Shyamalan’s idea won out, though Sparks said his pitch may yet come to fruition if the Remain experiment proves to be a hit and the timing works out.

Sparks, of course, is known for his romantic melodramas, many of which have become popular films. The closest any has come to a supernatural element is probably Safe Haven, in which a character is revealed to be a ghost who’s returned to help her grieving husband spark a new romance. (Sweet, not scary, in other words.)

In the Variety interview, Sparks spoke about how the duo has been trying to work together for years. Shyamalan had been asked to script The Notebook, a romance with no supernatural elements unless an unconventional view of Alzheimer’s disease counts, but decided instead to make The Sixth Sense—his breakout movie, as well as the title that established his horror bona fides.

Shyamalan is the master of the twist, as The Sixth Sense established, and Sparks told Variety that just because you’ve read Remain doesn’t mean you know exactly what’s going to happen in the movie. “One of the questions I asked Night about is, do you want the ending to be the same?†Sparks told the trade. “Do you want the twist to be the same? And we made a decision about that. You’ve gotta read the book and see the movie.â€

That’s not a surprise to hear, but it’s also very hard not to read Remain and imagine exactly how the movie is going to be. Once you know Jake Gyllenhaal and Phoebe Dynevor are playing the lead characters, you can’t not picture them as Tate and Wren. They cross paths in a wind-swept old house perched at the edge of Cape Cod—and, this isn’t the twist, because duh, but they fall in love.

The twist, though, doesn’t come at the end despite what that Sparks quote would have you believe. It comes very early in the story and it propels everything that happens in it.

Remain begins by introducing Tate—an architect who comes from old New York City money and drives an Aston Martin (as you do) but is somehow a humble, ethical, kind-hearted guy. He may not know how to cook or do laundry, but he loves his pet cat, Paulie, who is probably the best character in the book.

Tate’s emotionally wounded, having recently lost his beloved older sister, Sylvia. Her lifelong heart ailment—Sparks does love a terminal illness subplot—inspired her to live every day to its fullest, something Tate is having trouble doing, especially now that she’s gone.

We learn that Sylvia had a certain gift, a certain sixth sense if you will, and she may have passed it on to Tate—who’s always been skeptical about such things—when she died. Tate goes through some life stuff after Sylvia passes, necessitating an extended hospitalization for depression, but he gets back on the horse when his best friend, Oscar, hires him to design his new mega-mansion (12 bedrooms) on Cape Cod. (Sparks loves a beach!)

Oscar is also a non-gross billionaire thanks to his rags-to-riches backstory; he has an incredibly understanding wife and a posse of kids, but always has time to drop everything for his buddy, even when things get spooky.

Tate’s Cape Cod rental house is a “massive Victorian†selected by Oscar for its peaceful isolation, but the first night proves to be anything but peaceful when Tate and Paulie hear scary, mysterious sounds. The next morning, there’s a random woman doing yoga in the parlor. She’s friendly and wonderfully easy to talk to, not to mention easy on the eyes (duh), but there’s something peculiar about her.

This is Wren, who enters the story right around page 50, and a reader who has glanced at Remain’s cover (which promises M. Night Shyamalan’s involvement, as well as the fact that this is “a supernatural love storyâ€) can easily connect the dots, even if it takes Tate awhile to do so.

This romance is wholesome as hell—they can’t physically touch, but they can play charades and read poetry!—and while the spectral Wren has a bit of that Safe Haven character in her, she’s also got a generous dose of The Sixth Sense. She’s a ghost who doesn’t know she’s dead, and she needs help from a sympathetic living soul to help resolve her unfinished business and move on.

This interpretation of the afterlife is familiar. Think of all the ghost stories you’ve read or watched that involve a spirit caught in a sort of confusing purgatory, desperately needing a nudge to find their way.

However, Sparks and Shyamalan put forth the interesting idea that every ghost has two iterations. There’s the daytime version that looks as they did when they were alive and doesn’t comprehend what has happened to them. And then there’s a terrifying nighttime version where they reexperience the agonizing moment of their death. Over time, the daytime version begins to fade, until only the tortured version “remains.â€

That is intriguing even if further embellishments to Wren’s daytime existence are kind of hilarious; she has a revolving wardrobe that changes according to the day (and includes many, many attractive sundresses), and she can also conjure up cups of tea and glasses of wine when the mood strikes.

Wren is every bit the manic pixie dead girl—she even teaches Tate how to do his laundry for the first time, and he’s, like, in his late 30s!—but she’s not without flaws; Sparks is careful to bring in other points of view that suggest not everyone in the idyllic small town where this all takes place was a Wren fan. Those revelations help propel the plot as Tate and Oscar start investigating what really happened during her final days and hours.

In classic Sparks fashion, this is a doomed romance—while he’s got quite a few happy endings in his wheelhouse, he does enjoy killing off characters before the end, be it by disease, heroic act, or terrible accident. But this might be the first time the love story has been doomed from the start; instead, Remain ends up being more about learning the importance of having love in your life rather than finding that one perfect person to spend all your days with. Because that perfect person might be… you know, a ghost.

Sparks’ books are critic-proof at this point; he has a formula that his fans obviously enjoy, which his track record of bestsellers makes abundantly clear. If you’re going to read Remain, no review will stop you. He aims for a broad audience and the “horror†elements in Remain are nothing that will scare off devotees of The Notebook, though they are presumably a stretch for him stylistically.

You can imagine Shyamalan will lean more into Wren’s nighttime torment and bring more visceral fright into Tate’s story as he realizes the depth of his new abilities. The director may also, you’d guess, alter elements of the story’s central mystery so that folks who read the book and then check out the movie have an element of surprise left to discover.

And though Remain is a story that leans heavily into tropes anyone familiar with Sparks and Shyamalan’s previous works will easily recognize, it’s still kind of wild that these two stalwarts of mainstream entertainment decided to team up on a project like this. They clearly don’t need each other to find success at this point, though surely it didn’t hurt that the crossover appeal of Remain feels like a sure thing.

Remain by Nicholas Sparks is out now; a copy was provided to io9 for review.

Remain by M. Night Shyamalan is scheduled to hit theaters October 23, 2026. The cat better be in it or else.

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