14 DAY TRIAL // As expected, “Fifty Shades of Grey” had no actual rival at the box office over Valentine’s Day weekend, grossing almost $250 million (€219.1 million) at the global box office over the 3-day period, its opening weekend.
Universal Pictures had already confirmed the sequels before release, with leading stars Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson locked in their contracts for more installments. Director Sam Taylor-Johnson may be done with the franchise, now that her job on the first one is over: she can’t take any more of E.L. James’ power-plays.
A tough production, too much friction
In interviews preceding the release of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” Taylor-Johnson made no secret of how difficult her job to bring the film to the big screen had been. Most notably, she said, author E.L. James opposed her at every turn, wanting to get her own vision of the book to the public, which meant sticking word for word to the story in her book.
Taylor-Johnson wanted to make a different movie, she said. James, on the other hand, wanted to create a moving replica of the book of the same name on which the film was based.
Rumor online has it that they fought over every little thing, from Anastasia Steele’s safe word to how love scenes would be portrayed, and particularly which of those in the book would be included in the film.
This was possible because, when James sold off the rights to her trilogy of novels, she made sure she retained the final say in the creative process through a producing credit. In turn, this limited the director’s powers considerably, because, obviously, whatever she had in mind for the production had to be approved by James first.
Sam Taylor-Johnson is done with “Fifty Shades”
Ideally speaking, everyone should return for the 2 sequels, including the director. But Taylor-Johnson is done having to work with her hands tied, only because James thinks she knows better than anyone else what would look good on camera and what not.
“Sam won't be back for the Fifty Shades sequels,” an insider familiar with the production reveals for The Sun. “She wants out and Universal knows that's the right decision. Her relationship with Erika has become absolutely toxic – they despise each other and blame each other for the problems with the film.”
Indeed, some of the (many) problems with “Fifty Shades of Grey” can be explained by a miscommunication between the creatives working on it. For instance, the beautiful cinematography (Taylor-Johnson’s doing) makes you think of a movie that aspires to be more than its source material, but then the cheesy, cringe-worthy dialog brings you back to the ludicrous writing in James’ novel that inspired it.
On one hand, the movie tries to play out like a love story, but the accumulation of love scenes feels as if it’s just checking scenes from the book it just had to include, even though they’re not particularly relevant - and definitely not satisfying for the viewer.
If Taylor-Johnson opted out of the sequels, it’s probably for the best, even if she’s missing out on a bigger paycheck. This way, she can still walk away with her head held high and something to show for all this hard work, and the exposure will help her land much better gigs.
A review of “Fifty Shades of Grey” is also available, for more on the topic of the film’s hilarious flaws and its very few merits.