Jake Gyllenhaal has been announced as the lead in a new romance movie from The Notebook author and the director of Old.
Deadline reports that the actor will star in the "supernatural romantic thriller" from writer Nicholas Sparks and director M Night Shyamalan. The duo came up with the idea together, and will be working in parallel on a novel and screenplay, respectively, to explore the idea through the two different mediums.
While both stories will focus on the same concept and characters, they will be specifically tailored to their different audiences.
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Shyamalan's Blinding Edge Pictures is set to produce the film, with Warner Bros in discussions to release the film theatrically.
2024 was a solid year for Shyamalan thanks to his film Trap, about a dad who attends a concert with his teenage daughter only to learn the whole thing is a sting to catch a serial killer: him.
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Based on a real-life event and described by the director as "What if The Silence of the Lambs happened at a Taylor Swift concert?", the film had a mixed response from critics but turned a modest profit at the box office, and seems to be doing well on streaming.
Last year was particularly strong for Gyllenhaal, as his remake of the 1989 movie Road House quickly became a huge success for streamer Prime Video. The film went on to become the service's most-watched original movie ever.
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Not only was a sequel quickly commissioned, but the actor's production company, Nine Stories Productions, signed a major three-year deal with Amazon MGM Studios, giving it first options for any projects created by the company, covering both theatrical and streaming.
There were reports last year that the actor was being eyed up for a main role in season 2 of Netflix's anthology show Beef, but when the casting was announced, his name was nowhere to be seen.
Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016. In his time, he's covered a host of live events and interviewed celebrities big and small. A big fan of TV and movies both mainstream and obscure, Joe also enjoys video games and in particular PlayStation. Joe currently does not use Twitter, but he only ever used it to tell people to watch the film Help! I'm a Fish.
