Oscar-nominated screenwriter turned filmmaker Charles Shyer is discussing his new holiday film ‘The Noel Diary’ which is exclusively streaming on the Netflix platform and stars Justin Hartley and Barrett Doss.
The Christmas film is based on the book by Richard Paul Evans.
Shyer said that he received a bit of help from his longtime collaborator and onetime wife, Nancy Myers.
“The truth is we’re very good friends now, and when I was casting The Noel Diary, she read the script and said, ‘You’ve got to see this guy Justin Hartley from This Is Us,’ ” Shyer said of casting Hartley, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “He’s in the movie pretty much 100 percent because of Nancy. Nancy still has that great eye for talent, and that’s what rang the bell for me.”
Shyer also stated that he did not read the book prior to taking on the film.
“No, actually. I was sent the script that Netflix had. Other people have offered me movies and rewrites to direct, and most of the time, if they’re offering you a rewrite, that means there’s a wrinkle that it’s not so good. But I got the script for [The Noel Diary] and I went in, but it wasn’t the kind of movie that I wanted to make, really. It just … I don’t know, it was a faithful adaptation of the book but it didn’t ring the bell for me, as [Ernst Lubitsch] would say.”
According to the official synopsis: “When a best-selling author returns home at Christmas to settle his mother’s estate, he finds a diary that holds secrets to the past.”
The film arrives on Netflix on November 24th.
