Nicholas Sparks’ Counting Miracles Names Peanut Butter Falcon Director
Tyler Nilson will write and direct Amazon MGM’s adaptation, with Alan Ritchson starring as an Army Ranger searching for the father he never knew. The film has no release date yet, but its deal puts a filmmaker known for a small, actor-led hit inside a much larger studio production.
Tyler Nilson is taking the wheel on Counting Miracles, Amazon MGM Studios’ adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks novel, Variety reported on Sept. 10, 2026. Nilson will write and direct the film, with Reacher star Alan Ritchson set to play Tanner Hughes, an Army Ranger who travels across the country helping families of fallen soldiers. The news matters because Nilson arrives with The Peanut Butter Falcon, a warm, scruffy independent film that found a wide audience, while Ritchson is stepping into a Sparks story built around grief, family and a man trying to locate the part of himself he has never known.
Tyler Nilson moves from The Peanut Butter Falcon to Nicholas Sparks
Nilson co-wrote and co-directed The Peanut Butter Falcon with Michael Schwartz. The 2019 film starred Shia LaBeouf, Dakota Johnson and Zack Gottsagen, won the Audience Award at SXSW and became that year’s highest-grossing independent release, according to the report. Nilson later directed Los Frikis, which he also co-wrote with Schwartz. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller produced that 2024 film.
That résumé gives Counting Miracles a director who has worked with actors carrying intimate, sometimes bruised stories. It does not tell us what the new movie will look like. The film is still being assembled, and no release date has been announced. What it does offer is a reason for hope: Nilson has already shown an interest in characters who are easy to underestimate and difficult to leave behind.
Photo: Danielle G. Campbell · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Alan Ritchson plays an Army Ranger looking for his father
Ritchson’s Tanner Hughes begins with a job that keeps him close to other people’s losses. He supports the families of soldiers who died, then receives a mysterious letter that sends him searching for the father he never knew.
The search brings Tanner to a small town, where he meets a doctor and a single mother of two. A romance grows, and it pulls him toward the life of a reclusive older man with a haunting past. The relationships force Tanner to confront his identity and ask where he belongs.
