Noah and Allie's story could have been much different in the 2004 romance. Nicholas Sparks reveals the horror director who almost adapted The Notebook

Noah and Allie's story could have been much different in the 2004 romance.

Nicholas Sparks reveals the horror director who almost adapted The Notebook

Noah and Allie's story could have been much different in the 2004 romance.

By Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American *Journalism Review* and *The Shreveport Times*.

EW's editorial guidelines

October 3, 2025 3:20 p.m. ET

Leave a Comment

Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams in 'The Notebook'. Credit:

Melissa Moseley/Newline

*The Notebook *was almost a very different movie.

Author Nicholas Sparks, who wrote the novel from which the 2004 romantic drama was adapted, said on Thursday's *Good Morning America *that writer and director M. Night Shyamalan, known for his eerie, supernatural plots that aren't always what they seem, was once in the running to bring it to the big screen.

"Years ago, back in the '90s, when they were doing the script for *The Notebook*," Sparks said, "one of the writers they approached to adapt *The Notebook *for screen: M. Night Shyamalan. You know why he couldn't do it? 'Cause he was doing *The Sixth Sense*."

I see hot people: M. Night Shyamalan, Jake Gyllenhaal, Nicholas Sparks teaming up for thriller

Every Nicholas Sparks movie adaptation ranked, from 'The Notebook' to 'The Last Song'

Shyamalan's 1999 movie, which starred Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, and Toni Collette, left audiences stunned with the major reveal at the end that Willis's character had been dead all along.

There was no such ending in* The Notebook*, which depicted a romance between Rachel McAdams' Allie and Ryan Gosling's Noah over decades, from the time they fell in love as teenagers and broke up after driven apart by her parents to when they emotionally reunited years later. There was a time jump, as the story was told by the older Noah (James Garner) to a more mature Allie (Gena Rowlands), who struggled with dementia and needed to be reminded of their love story.**

Both were hits.

The tear-jerker was eventually credited to scribes Jan Sardi and Jeremy Leven, as well as Sparks.

The author of more than 20 novels, Sparks is as well known for work that pulls at the heartstrings — his books that have been turned into films include *A Walk to Remember* and *Dear John* — as Shyamalan is for his psychological scares in movies like *Signs*, *Knock at the Cabin*, and *Trap*.

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.***

Sparks mentioned that he'd been a fan of the writer-director's work, and had even paid tribute to him.

"[*The Sixth Sense*] inspired a character in one of my previous novels *Safe Haven*," he said on *GMA*. "It was funny that was a nod to Night. There was a secondary character in *Safe Haven*. And by the end of the novel, you don't know, was she there? Was she not there? Was it a ghost? Was it a figment of the imagination? So, it was sort of meant to be."**

The two have come together for their latest project: *Remain*.

Nicholas Sparks; M. Night Shyamalan.

John Lamparski/Getty; John Nacion/Getty

"It's a guy. He's a an architect," Sparks said, describing the plot. "He goes to build a house for a friend in a nice New England town and gets into the house where he's going to be staying, and things begin to happen."

He promised the work has both a love story and "big twists."

The book *Remain*, by both Sparks and Shyamalan, is out Oct.14, while the film is scheduled for 2026.**

Original Article on Source

Source: "AOL Movies"

Read More

---

Source: VOGUE MAG

Full Article on Source: VOGUE MAG

#LALifestyle #USCelebrities