Is Fifty Shades in Trouble?

By Jeanne Sutton
26th Oct 2014

christian and ana kissing

To say that?Fifty Shades of Grey, the adaptation of E.L. James bestselling erotica novel of the same name, is the most anticipated movie of 2015 is pretty much spot on. The novel’s swift success in 2012 saw it sweeping bestseller lists and spawning so many thinkpieces that opening a Saturday paper was to risk a sort of snow blindness, where headlines played on the title to a mortifying extent.

The movie, directed by the acclaimed artist and director Sam Taylor-Johnson and starring Northern Irish actor Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson, is slated for an international release next February and worries are a-brewing that the story – young naive college graduate who doesn’t own a laptop falls for a young billionaire who owns a helicopter and dedicates a room in his penthouse apartment to BDSM sex toys – may be doomed to be a cinematic flop.?The Daily Mail reports the current re-shoots taking place in Vancouver are an indication that the movie, due to hit screens in four months, is in trouble. While Universal, the studio producing the film, is adamant that they are merely perfecting some scenes, sources have been mouthing off to Us Magazine that producers feel the chemistry between the leads, Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan, is lacking passion. Considering the film’s source novel has such a frenzied fanbase, it is imperative that the studio get everything right. After all, no one wants to be this generations?Showgirls.

Apparently most of the worry is due to Dakota Johnson’s onscreen presence. She “isn’t coming off sexy enough”. The casting process for the movie was fraught from the start with original leading man Charlie Hunnam departing from the film soon after he was unexpectedly announced as Christian Grey. Universal insiders meanwhile maintain that Dakota is just fine as Anastasia Steele and that executives are just keen to get the most perfect movie possible on screen – after all, there are sequel novels…

Bad chemistry has afflicted movies such as the most recent?Star Wars trilogy. Remember boyband Darth Vader saying I’m-in-love-with-you words at Natalie Portman while the CGI elephant creatures in the background were way more convincing? Also, the end of?Pretty in Pink still makes no sense. Never mind that dress, Blane just stood there and got the girl? Sorry, but Andy had more chemistry with fellow co-star James Spader’s smarmy white suit. Although, we think most women would choose an worn item of 1980s James Spader’s wardrobe over most men…

In other Fifty Shades news, Sam Taylor-Johnson has started an Instagram account that is taking interested followers behind the scenes of the reshoots and her jetsetting lifestyle – perhaps this whole endeavour is a clever PR move to diminish any bad rumours stalking the production? Here are the two leads looking relaxed together. You picking up on that subtext?