Remain: Nicholas Sparks, M. Night Shyamalan supernatural romantic thriller gets a Halloween 2026 release

A few months ago, it was announced that The Sixth Sense director M. Night Shyamalan and The Notebook author Nicholas Sparks were teaming up for a supernatural romantic thriller called Remain. Shyamalan and Sparks created the original story together, with Shyamalan going off to write a screenplay based on the story while Sparks turned the idea into a novel. As was said at the time, “Both will be based on the same concept and set of characters but designed for their individual mediums.” The Sparks novel is scheduled to reach store shelves this year, on October 7th, and Amazon is already accepting pre-orders for the 352 page book at THIS LINK. Now, Deadline has revealed that the Shyamalan film will reach theatres one year later, just in time for Halloween, as Warner Bros. Pictures has given it an October 23, 2026 release date.

Sparks’ novel has the following description: A one-of-a-kind novel that grapples with the supernatural mysteries of life, death, and human connection—an unprecedented collaboration between the globally bestselling author of love stories like The Notebook and the renowned writer and director of blockbuster thrillers like The Sixth Sense. When New York architect Tate Donovan arrives in Cape Cod to design his best friend’s summer home, he is hoping to make a fresh start. Recently discharged from an upscale psychiatric facility where he was treated for acute depression, he is still wrestling with the pain of losing his beloved sister. Sylvia’s deathbed revelation—that she can see spirits who are still tethered to the living world, a gift that runs in their family—sits uneasily with Tate, who struggles to believe in more than what reason can explain. But when he takes up residence at a historic bed-and-breakfast on the Cape, he encounters a beautiful young woman named Wren who will challenge every assumption he has about his logical and controlled world. Tate and Wren find themselves forging an immediate connection, one that neither has ever experienced before. But Tate gradually discovers that below the surface of Wren’s idyllic small-town life, hatred, jealousy, and greed are festering, threatening their fragile relationship just as it begins to blossom. Tate realizes that in order to free Wren from an increasingly desperate fate, he will need to unearth the truth about her past before time runs out . . . a quest that will make him doubt whether we can ever believe the stories we tell about ourselves, and the laws that govern our existence. Love—while transformative—can sometimes be frightening. A story about the power of transcendent emotion, Remain asks us all: Can love set us free not only from our greatest sorrows, but even from the boundaries of life and death?

Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko), Phoebe Dynevor (Bridgerton), and Ashley Walters (Adolescence) are attached to star in Shyamalan’s film.

October 23, 2026 happens to be the same date that Universal Pictures reserved for the next Jordan Peele movie eleven months ago. We haven’t heard anything more about the Peele project since then, but now we’re going to have to wait and see: which studio is going to move which movie? It’s highly unlikely that Warner Bros. and Universal are really going to release Shyamalan and Peele movies on the same date.

Are you hoping to watch Remain on Halloween 2026? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.

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