14 DAY TRIAL // Next year on Valentine’s Day, one of the most anticipated silver screen adaptations, of E.L. James’ “Fifty Shades of Grey” novel, comes out in theaters, with Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson as leads. Dornan’s most recent comment on the film is bound to be a letdown for readers of the book.
“Fifty Shades of Grey” the novel is the first in a trilogy that also includes “Fifty Shades Darker” and “Fifty Shades Freed,” and tells the story of Christian Grey, a troubled and mysterious millionaire whose only idea of a relationship is an S&M one, and Anastasia Steele, a virgin he falls for but can’t let near his heart because of past trauma.
The books, to put it bluntly, are not for the faint of heart – and definitely not for the prude.
Expect the movies to be different
“Fifty Shades of Grey” the movie will hopefully launch a new franchise, which could span to include 3 or even 4 movies, in the manner of “The Twilight Saga” or “The Hunger Games.” The “Twilight” comparison makes a bit more sense, since James wrote these two characters as fan-fiction for Bella and Edward in the famous vampire story.
Either way, the bottom line is that the first “Fifty Shades” movie will have to reach a wide audience in order to get greenlight for a sequel and a threequel, which means that producers don’t want to count on the readers of the novels only.
This, in turn, means toning down the raunchiness in the source material to an R-rating. Initially, producers teased fans saying that there would be 2 versions of the same movie released in theaters, an R-rated one and a special NC-17 one, which would be exclusively for the readers of the books.
If there ever was such a plan, it fell through, so only the R-rated version is being made. An R-rating means moviegoers won’t see more flesh or explicit content that of the type included in the first trailer, which you will find embedded below.
So, most of the love scenes will happen “off screen” or will be done in a non-revealing manner.
No full frontal shots of Dornan either
Speaking with The Guardian, the British actor says that female readers of the book rushing into theater hoping to get at least one scene of full frontal nudity with him are bound to be disappointed because not even one such scene will be included.
To think that even Ben Affleck did it in his most recent film, David Fincher’s “Gone Girl,” and Dornan won’t in a movie that showed such promise in this sense! This is bound to be a major letdown for fans.
“There were contracts in place that said that viewers wouldn’t be seeing my, um… [manhood]. You want to appeal to as wide an audience as possible without grossing them out. You don’t want to make something gratuitous, ugly and graphic,” Dornan says.
Film will stray from the books, most likely
If you’ve been keeping up to speed with the promo tour for the film, you’ve probably noticed how much he’s been emphasizing this aspect of the film not being “hardcore,” “grotesque,” “explicit.” Again, if you’ve read the books, you know that this is exactly what was expected of it, because James made sure the story was just that: hardcore, explicit, gratuitous.
Once more, this begs the question of the direction “Fifty Shades” the movie will take. Our guess is that it will probably use the source material of the novels as a starting point, in which the S&M element will be muted in the background, and the story will play out like a typical Hollywoodian / love one.
