M. Night Shyamalan announces ‘Magic 8 Ball’ series and releases a horror-romance novel with Nicholas Sparks
The Lower Merion-bred filmmaker is keeping busy with a live-action series based on Mattel toy and a novel with ‘The Notebook’ author.
Filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan is dipping his hands into the world of literature and is revisiting the small screen.
On Monday, Variety reported that the Shyamalan will direct Magic 8 Ball, a live-action series based on the popular Mattel fortune-telling toy.
“Been working on this for a couple years … Who’s in?” Shyamalan wrote in an Instagram post featuring the screenplay for the pilot episode, with a Magic 8 Ball resting on top.
Shyamalan will serve as cocreator with Brad Falchuk, cocreator of hit TV shows such as Glee and American Horror Story. Falchuk will also be writing the TV series, which marks Shyamalan’s return to television since the conclusion of Servant, the Apple TV+ series directed by him, that ended in March 2023 after four seasons.
No details on the series have been announced.
On Tuesday, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker from Lower Merion also released Remain, the book he conceived with famed novelist Nicholas Sparks of The Notebook and A Walk to Remember fame.
The book melds Shyamalan‘s knack for supernatural horror and Sparks’ penchant for romance. While Remain is Sparks and Shyamalan‘s first collaboration, it isn’t the first time the two have attempted to work with one another.
In an interview with Variety last month, Sparks revealed that Shyamalan was tapped to write the script for The Notebook. But “he was busy writing this movie The Sixth Sense. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that movie. I wonder how that eventually did?” Sparks joked.
While the 2004 film was eventually adapted by screenwriters Jeremy Leven and Jan Sardi, Sparks and Shyamalan closely followed each other’s careers in the years that followed. And after a series of pitches between the two creatives, they settled on a genre-blending concept for Sparks’ 25th novel.
Released by Penguin Random House, the book follows New York architect Tate Donovan, who arrives in Cape Cod to design his best friend’s summer home, while hoping to make a fresh start, per the publisher’s description.
Sparks wrote the novel, and Shyamalan wrote the screenplay for a horror-romance, set for a fall 2026 release. The film will star Jake Gyllenhaal and Phoebe Dynevor.