Say what you will about Nicholas Sparks, but his movies always seem to perform well in the box office. While none of them have been huge smash hits ("The Notebook" aside), they all make a pretty hefty profit on modest budgets. This year’s ”Safe Haven” continued the trend, opening up quite well even as it faced off against "A Good Day To Die Hard." So it should come as no surprise to anyone that a bidding war among studios erupted recently in an attempt to purchase Sparks’s latest, "The Longest Ride."
Fox 2000 wound up winning the bid for book, with Deadline reporting that the deal is worth $5 million. The producers of “Safe Haven” will be back for this film and it’s expected to be released on Valentine’s Day weekend in 2015. A Nicholas Sparks adaptation being released on Valentine’s Day weekend is a no-brainer, since “Safe Haven”, “Message in a Bottle,” and “Dear John” were all released around the holiday.
"The Longest Ride" has two intertwining love stories. The first follows a 90-year-old man who winds up in a horrific car accident on an isolated road. While waiting to be rescued, the man “sees visions of his life love, who died earlier. Together they reminisce about their life together, including his difficulty in returning from WWII, and being unable to have children with her because of a war wound.” The other love story features a “young art history major and a handsome bull rider who fall in love despite coming from completely different backgrounds… A strange occurrence allows the two generations of lovers to save each other.”
Yep, sounds like a Nicholas Sparks novel. "The Longest Ride" will arrive on bookshelves on September 24th.