Nicholas Sparks | |
---|---|
![]() Sparks in 2006 | |
Born | Nicholas Charles Sparks December 31, 1965 Omaha, Nebraska, U.S. |
Occupation |
|
Alma mater | University of Notre Dame |
Genre | |
Spouse | Cathy Cote (m. 1989;div. 2015) |
Children | 5 |
Website | |
nicholassparks |
Nicholas Charles Sparks (born December 31, 1965) is an American novelist, screenwriter, and film producer. He has published twenty-three novels, all New York Times bestsellers, [1] and two works of nonfiction, with over 115 million copies sold worldwide in more than 50 languages. [2] Among his works are The Notebook , A Walk to Remember , and Message in a Bottle all of which, along with eight other books, have been adapted as feature films. [3]
Sparks lives in North Carolina, where many of his novels are set. [4]
Nicholas Sparks was born on December 31, 1965, in Omaha, Nebraska. [5] His father, Patrick Michael Sparks, was a business professor and his mother, Jill Emma Marie Sparks (née Thoene), was a homemaker and an optometrist's assistant. [6] Sparks is of German, Czech, English, and Irish ancestry. [7] He was the middle of three children, with an older brother, Michael Earl "Micah" Sparks (born 1964), and a younger sister, Danielle "Dana" Sparks Lewis (1966–2000), who died at the age of 33 from a brain tumor, an event that inspired his novel A Walk to Remember . [8] As a child, Sparks lived in Watertown, Minnesota; Inglewood, California; Playa Del Rey, California; and Grand Island, Nebraska, before the family settled in Fair Oaks, California in 1974. [7]
In 1984, Sparks graduated valedictorian of Bella Vista High School. [9] He began writing while attending the University of Notre Dame on a track and field scholarship, majoring in business finance and graduating magna cum laude. [10] Sparks wrote his first, never published, novel, The Passing in 1985 and a second unpublished novel called The Royal Murders in 1989. He married Cathy Cote in 1989 and moved to New Bern, North Carolina. [11]
Sparks' first published book was Wokini: A Lakota Journey to Happiness and Self-Understanding, [12] a nonfiction book co-written by Billy Mills about Lakota spiritual beliefs and practices, published by Feather Publishing. The book sold 50,000 copies in its first year after release. [13]
In 1995, literary agent Theresa Park secured a $1 million advance for The Notebook from Time Warner Book Group, the book that became Spark's breakthrough novel. [14] Published in October 1996, the novel made The New York Times bestseller list in its first week of release and eventually spent fifty-six weeks there.
In 1998, after the publication of The Notebook, Sparks wrote Message in a Bottle which, in 1999, became the first of his novels to be adapted for film in 1999. In total, eleven of his novels have been adapted as films: Message in a Bottle (1999), A Walk to Remember (2002), The Notebook (2004), Nights in Rodanthe (2008), Dear John (2010), The Last Song (2010), The Lucky One (2012), Safe Haven (2013), The Best of Me (2014), The Longest Ride (2015), and The Choice (2016). [15] He has also sold the screenplay adaptations of True Believer and At First Sight.
Including The Notebook, fifteen of Sparks's novels have been No. 1 New York Times Best Sellers, and all of his novels have been both New York Times and international bestsellers. [16] Sparks has also often been listed on Forbes annual highest-paid authors lists. [17]
In September 2020, Sparks published his twenty-first novel The Return and followed that up with The Wish in 2021 and Dreamland in 2022, each of which were optioned as films. [18]
Sparks lives in New Bern, North Carolina. He has three sons and twin daughters. In 2015, he divorced Cathy Cote, his wife of 25 years. [19] [20]
In 2008, Sparks donated nearly $900,000 [21] for a new, all-weather tartan track to New Bern High School, where he has also volunteered to coach. [22] The same year, he also donated "close to $10 million" to start a private school, The Epiphany School of Global Studies. [23] [24] Sparks has also funded scholarships, internships, and annual fellowships at the University of Notre Dame Creative Writing Program. In 2012, he founded The Nicholas Sparks Foundation, a nonprofit that funds global education experiences for students, which has donated more than $15 million to charities, scholarship programs, and other projects. [25]
Eleven of Sparks's books have been turned into films, four of which he produced, including The Choice , The Longest Ride , The Best of Me , and Safe Haven . Seven other of his books have also adapted for film: The Lucky One , Message in a Bottle , A Walk to Remember , Nights in Rodanthe , Dear John , The Last Song , and The Notebook . [28] Films based on his novels have grossed $889,615,166 worldwide, while the Rotten Tomatoes scores range from 11% for The Choice [29] to 53% for The Notebook , the most critically acclaimed film based on his work. [30]
In April 2021, it was announced that a film adaptation of The Return was in development. Tom Dean joined the production as director, with the project developed by Bisous Pictures, and MRC Films, while MRC will serve as distributing company. Sparks will serve as a producer alongside Elizabeth Cantillon, and Theresa Park. [31] [32] In May of the same year, it was announced that three additional films based on novels by the author were in development for distribution by Universal Pictures. The company signed a first-look deal with Sparks, with intentions being that a long-term working relationship follow; the three movies will be joint-venture productions between Universal Pictures and Anonymous Content. The Wish will be the first book to be developed by the studio, followed by Dreamland, and an as-of-yet unspecified third adaptation. The Wish will see Sparks serve as producer, alongside Park, and Zack Hayden. [33] [34] [35] [36]
Year | Series | Credit | Director/ showrunner | Network | RT |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2014 | Deliverance Creek [57] [58] | Executive producer | Jon Amiel | Lifetime | 50% (6 reviews) [59] |
TBA | Untitled The Notebook follow-up [57] [58] | Characters based on The Notebook | TBA | The CW | TBD |
A Walk to Remember is a 2002 American coming-of-age romantic drama film directed by Adam Shankman and written by Karen Janszen, based on Nicholas Sparks' 1999 novel of the same name. It stars Shane West, Mandy Moore, Peter Coyote and Daryl Hannah, and was produced by Denise Di Novi and Hunt Lowry for Warner Bros. Pictures.
Rodanthe is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) located in Dare County, North Carolina, United States, on Hatteras Island, part of North Carolina's Outer Banks. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 213. Rodanthe, along with Waves and Salvo, are part of the settlement of Chicamacomico. Rodanthe includes the original Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station, decommissioned in 1954, but now a museum.
Message in a Bottle is a 1999 American romantic drama film directed by Luis Mandoki, based on Nicholas Sparks's novel of the same name, and starring Kevin Costner, Robin Wright and Paul Newman. It was filmed in Maine, Chicago and Wilmington, North Carolina. The film follows a writer in love with a shipbuilder after finding a letter inside the bottle. The film was released February 12, 1999, by Warner Bros. Pictures. It was panned by the critics, but was a box-office hit, grossing $118 million against a $30 million budget.
Best Seller is a 1987 American neo-noir crime thriller film written by Larry Cohen, directed by John Flynn and starring James Woods and Brian Dennehy. The film tells the story of Cleve (Woods), a career hitman, who wants to turn his life story into a book written by Dennis Meechum (Dennehy), a veteran police officer and best-selling author
Nicholas Jarecki is an American film director, producer, and writer best known for his 2012 feature film Arbitrage.
Nights in Rodanthe is a 2008 American romantic drama film. It is an adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' 2002 novel of the same name. The film stars Richard Gere and Diane Lane in their third screen collaboration after The Cotton Club (1984) and Unfaithful (2002).
Children of the Corn is an American film series that began with Children of the Corn, released in 1984 by New World Pictures. After the release of Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992) and the series' acquisition by Dimension Films, the subsequent installments were released directly to video, and bore little to no narrative continuity, beginning with Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995). In 2009, a second adaptation of the short story aired on the Syfy network, via Fox 21 Television. A third adaptation of the short story titled Children of the Corn (2020), was released on October 23, 2020.
The Notebook is a 2004 American romantic drama film directed by Nick Cassavetes, from a screenplay by Jeremy Leven and Jan Sardi, and based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Nicholas Sparks. The film stars Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams as a young couple who fall in love in the 1940s. Their story is read from a notebook in the present day by an elderly man, telling the tale to a fellow nursing home resident.
A Walk to Remember is a novel by American writer Nicholas Sparks, released in October 1999. The novel, set in 1958–1959 in Beaufort, North Carolina, is a story of two teenagers who fall in love with each other despite the disparity of their personalities. A Walk to Remember is adapted in the film of the same name.
Nights in Rodanthe is a romantic love story novel by American writer Nicholas Sparks in September 2002.
The Last Song is a 2010 American coming-of-age teen romantic drama film developed alongside Nicholas Sparks' 2009 novel of the same name. The film was directed by Julie Anne Robinson in her feature film directorial debut and co-written by Sparks and Jeff Van Wie. The Last Song stars Miley Cyrus, Liam Hemsworth, and Greg Kinnear, and follows a troubled teenager as she reconnects with her estranged father and falls in love during a summer in a quiet Southern United States beach town.
Point Grey (PGP) is a Canadian-American film and television production company, founded in 2011 by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. The company is named after Point Grey Secondary School in Vancouver, where they met. Their logo first featured a school desk. Later, it featured an abstract "PG".
The Exorcist is an American horror media franchise that originated with William Peter Blatty's 1971 horror novel of the same name and most prominently featured in a 1973 film adaptation of the novel, and many subsequent prequels and sequels. All of these installments focus on fictional accounts of people possessed by Pazuzu, the main antagonist of the series, and the efforts of religious authorities to counter this possession.
The Longest Ride is a 2015 American romantic drama film directed by George Tillman Jr. and written by Craig Bolotin. Based on Nicholas Sparks' 2013 novel of the same name, the film stars Britt Robertson, Scott Eastwood, Jack Huston, Oona Chaplin, and Alan Alda. The film was released on April 10, 2015 by 20th Century Fox.
The Best of Me is a 2014 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Hoffman and written by Will Fetters and J. Mills Goodloe, based on Nicholas Sparks' 2011 novel of the same name. The film stars James Marsden and Michelle Monaghan with Luke Bracey and Liana Liberato.
The Robert Langdon franchise consists of American action-adventure mystery-thriller installments, including three theatrical films directed by Ron Howard, and a television series. The films, based on the novel series written by Dan Brown, center on the fictional character of Robert Langdon. Though based on the book series, the films have a different chronological order, consisting of: The Da Vinci Code (2006), Angels & Demons (2009) and Inferno (2016), all starring Tom Hanks as Langdon, alongside different ensemble casts. Despite mixed-to-negative critical reception, the films are considered box office successes, having a combined gross total of $1.5 billion worldwide.