The work of best-selling author Nicholas Sparks hits theaters once again. His latest movie, The Lucky One, is the seventh film adaptation from his collection of 17 novels.
Based on the 2008 book of the same name, The Lucky One tells the story of Logan Thibault, played by Zac Efron, a marine who has returned from his third tour in Iraq. While deployed, he found a photograph of a woman, which he came to believe was his lucky charm, keeping him alive while most of his platoon did not make it.
When Logan returns home, he is determined to find this woman. When he finds Beth, the woman in the photograph, in Hampton, N.C., he begins to work for her and her grandmother, played by Blythe Danner, neglecting to mention the photo.
As Logan and Beth start to build a romance, things go wrong - in typical Nicholas Sparks fashion - as suspicion, secrets and Beth's ex-husband get in the way.
"I feel like no one has good ideas for movies anymore, so they resort to using books," junior Victoria Debold said. "They usually change things that the author put in the book, sometimes disappointing audiences. People become discouraged from reading or seeing further works by those authors."
Unlike the shaggy haired, hippy-looking character Sparks describes in the book, Efron's version of the character appears cleaner cut and more put together. However, word on the movie is that it stays true to the book.
Like the rest of Sparks' novels, The Lucky One is set in North Carolina, where the author lives with his family.
Similar to The Notebook and Dear John, Sparks explores another military character in Logan, his marine background playing an important part in the theme of the story. Sparks' inspiration came from a newspaper picture of an exhausted marine staring at a photograph seeming to be gaining strength from the image. Wondering who the marine was and what the photo meant to him, Sparks created his own story to coincide with the picture, leading to the creation of The Lucky One.
"I've been dragged to a few movies which was just the most awful experience for me," junior Brian Fucci said.
Sparks is often criticized for his clich?©, sappy love novels-turned-movies, but he has become one of the bestselling novelists and screenwriters around the world.
Six out of the last seven novels Sparks wrote have been picked up for film adaptations, which begs the question if he writes his novels with the intention of turning them into films.
When penning The Last Song, Sparks wrote the main character with Miley Cyrus in mind. He spent time with the entire Cyrus family and had her come up with the name for her character Ronnie. He started writing the draft of the screenplay before even beginning the novel.
Sparks' two latest novels, Safe Haven and The Best of Me, published in 2010 and 2011 respectively, have both been bought by production companies. Although neither has started casting or filming yet, Safe Haven is set to be released in early 2013.
Some of his earlier novels have also been bought by production companies, but whether or not they will ever be created and released is still undetermined.
"But I'll say it loud and proud. A Walk to Remember is and will always be one of my favorite movies," Fucci said. "Maybe it had to do with the fact that I read the book and loved that too. And just for the record it was a school reading in my high school, so I didn't pick it up willingly."
Nowadays, it goes hand in hand that when a new Nicholas Sparks book comes out, a movie is not far behind it.
"The Lucky One" will be released in theaters on April 20.
Kristyn Lyncheski can be reached at kristyn.lyncheski@student.shu.edu.
