14 DAY TRIAL // The utmost sign of confidence from a movie studio is when it greenlights other installments in the same franchise before the first one is even out in theaters. However, based on response to “Fifty Shades of Grey,” which will be out this Valentine’s Day, Universal Pictures has every reason to do that.
So yes, we’ll be getting two more films, based, like this one, on the original novels by E.L. James, “Fifty Shades Darker” and “Fifty Shades Freed,” respectively.
MTV informs that the big news was confirmed during a Q&A after a private screening for the fans, with the entire gang confirming they’d be back. The gang would be actors Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson, who play Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele, and director Sam Taylor-Johnson.
Dornan and Johnson had long revealed that they were contractually bound to the studio to reprise their roles if the sequels were greenlit, so the announcement wasn’t really a surprise.
Taylor-Johnson said that she would return too, even though in her more recent interviews, she made it very clear that the experience of working on the film was far from what she had imagined, mostly because of friction with E.L. James, who simply refused to let her make the movie she wanted to make.
That’s not even the worst part, if we believe some of the buzz online. “Fifty Shades of Grey” will be a huge commercial hit, there is no more doubt about that, since pre-sales tickets have already ensured that. It could still turn into a critical disaster, though, and that’s mostly because of the lack of chemistry between the leads.
It’s not just that there isn’t a single spark going off between them, which is particularly worrying for a film where passion and desire set everything in motion: Dornan and Johnson are said to hate each other, hence said lack of chemistry.
And they have to do at least 2 more movies playing lovers who can’t keep their hands off each other. Now that’s worrying!