The producers and creative team behind Broadway’s upcoming musical adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’ The Notebook say they are “encouraged” by the author’s “strong statement of support of the LGBTQ+ community today,” and note in a statement of their own that they have “complete freedom to create a very new piece of art…

UPDATE, with attorney response The Notebook author Nicholas Sparks has released a lengthy, 500-word-plus statement in which he expresses “regret” and apologizes for his words that “have potentially hurt young people and members of the LGBTQ community, including my friends and colleagues in that community.” But an…

For the second time in recent months, real-world controversy has visited the make-believe world of Broadway musicals. Nicholas Sparks, whose 1996 novel The Notebook is being turned into a Broadway musical by, among others, playwright and This Is Us producer Bekah Brunstetter, was slammed in a Daily Beast article today…

Nicholas Sparks’ The Notebook is headed to Broadway as a musical, with playwright and This Is Us supervising producer Bekah Brunstetter writing the book and “Girls Chase Boys” hit-maker Ingrid Michaelson handling music and lyrics. "I am thrilled to work with Bekah and Ingrid in order to make The Notebook a reality on…

The CW is keeping two high-profile projects that it developed this season in contention for the next cycle. I have learned that the network plans to redevelop The Notebook, based on the romance novel by Nicholas Sparks and the 2004 feature, and Weaveworld, an adaptation of the horror/fantasy novel by Clive Barker (Hell…

Best-selling romance novelist Nicholas Sparks has sold his first half-hour comedy project. The Next Chapter, written by Austin Winsberg (Gossip Girl, The Sound Of Music Live!), hails from Warner Bros TV and Sparks’ studio-based Nicholas Sparks Prods. Loosely based on Sparks’ new life as a single man, The Next Chapter…

UPDATED: The CW is developing a new series based on The Notebook, the best-selling novel by Nicholas Sparks and the 2004 feature directed by Nick Cassavetes and starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. Set in the late 1940s North Carolina, the series would follow the romantic journey of the two beloved central…

Sunday Final update 9:36AM after 6:50AM post: It took Fast & Furious 6 some 15 weeks to accumulate $238.6M in domestic box office during the summer of 2013. By contrast, it will take Furious 7 just 10 days to pass its immediate predecessor as the highest-grossing title in the Fast & Furious franchise. Universal sees Fu…

The feature adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’ cowboy romance The Longest Ride pulled in $625K from previews last night at 2,360 locations for a $265 per-theater average. It’s the only wide entry this weekend and will expand to 3,365 theaters. Moviehouses opened their fences to the 20th Century Fox drama at 8 PM…

With ten film adaptations of his books already, and an 11th (The Choice) set for early 2016, it is clear that Nicholas Spark’s brand of romantic love stories make him Hollywood’s favorite author. With his latest, The Longest Ride, I think Sparks’ faithful (overwhelmingly female) audience might find, as I did in my…

Tom Welling has landed a lead in The Choice, the Ross Katz-directed adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks novel from a script by Bryan Sipe for Lionsgate. Benjamin Walker plays Travis Parker and Teresa Palmer plays Gabby Holland. Neighbors in a small coastal town, they end up pursuing a relationship neither expected…

UPDATED 4:45 PM: Just hours after the male lead was announced, Teresa Palmer has been tapped as female lead Gabby Holland in Lionsgate’s The Choice. Her recent credits include The Ever After, Parts Per Billion and Love And Honor, and Palmer next appears in Cut Bank and Kill Me Three Times. Palmer is repped by WME…