No author since perhaps Danielle Steel has served as the foundation for such a run of increasingly wishy washy movies, but at least those were mostly made for TV. “Message In A Bottle,” “A Walk To Remember,” “The Notebook,” “Nights In Rodanthe,” “Dear John” and “The Last Song” have all be made from the works of Nicholas Sparks, the Mad Lib author who has a found a good formula that more or less remains unchanged with each book. So who better to deliver his latest batch of pablum than Lasse Hallström who has already tackled the author’s material before with “Dear John.”
Deadline reports that Relativity‘s “Safe Haven” now has a director in Hallström. As you might recall, Hallström bailed on the much more promising transgendered drama “The Danish Girl” with Nicole Kidman attached not too long ago because after all, doing serious drama hardly brings in the big bucks. Anyway, this one will be slightly different from your normal Sparks pile of mush as there are elements of violence and paranormal stuff in the plot, but essentially, the story “follows a young North Carolina woman who is determined to avoid forming personal ties until a series of events draws her into two reluctant relationships. As she begins to fall in love, she struggles with a dark secret that still haunts and terrifies her.”
This will likely get rolling very quickly. Relativity has already pegged the film with a June 1, 2012 release date where it will square off against rival Universal‘s “Snow White And The Huntsman.” Hallström will likely get “Salmon Fishing In Yemen” in the can first before starting lensing, but there’s no word on how this may affect his adaptation of the Swedish crime novel “The Hypnotist” which he signed on a direct a few months ago with plans to start shooting fast for a 2012 release date — we’d guess that one is on the backburner for now.
