'Fifty Shades of Grey' Featured in Empire Magazine

'Fifty Shades of Grey' Featured in Empire Magazine (March 2015)

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31 Things You Didn't Know About 'Fifty Shades of Grey'

1 - Seventy million. That's how many copies of Fifty Shades Of Grey. E. L. James' sex-soaked love story, have sold around the world. Sales of its sequels. Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, take the series over the 100 million mark.

2 - Not bad for a bit of modified Twilight fan-fic, which is how the novel began life online in 2009. Titled Master Of The Universe and not, astonishingly, Twi-hard it took place in an alternative universe where Edward Cullen, the glittery vamp played by Robert Pattinson in the Twilight movies, was reimagined as a BDSM-loving billionaire.

3 - BDSM. by the way, stands for "bondage, domination and sado-masochism". We had to Google that. Honest.

4 - James was initially known as Snowqueens Icedragon. As its popularity increased, she decided to rewrite Master Of The Universe with original character names and no vampirism. So Edward became
Christian Grey, and Bella Swan turned into Anastasia Steele.

5 - It’s hard to find Master Of The Universe online these days, but if you look hard enough, remnants exist.

6 - After a bidding war involving several studios, James sold the rights in March 2012 to Universal and Focus Features for a rumoured $5 million, plus a percentage of the gross.

7 - Which is where Sam Taylor-Johnson first heard of it. “I was at a dinner and met James Schamus, who was head of Focus Features. I was trying to make conversation with someone I didn't know and said. ‘Are you doing anything exciting?’ He said. ‘We’ve just acquired the rights to Fifty Shades Of Grey.' I remember thinking. ‘Wow. I wonder who’ll do that and how they'll do it...’”

8 - lt was reported that James' demands for selling the rights involved the right to choose the director, the screenplay, locations and her producing partners.

9 - In the end, she chose Michael De Luca and Dana Brunetti. who had previously produced Captain Phillips and The Social Network.

10 - Directors reportedly in the running included Joe Wright — who turned down the job — Patty Jenkins, Bill Condon, Bennett Miller, Gus Van Sant and Steven Soderbergh.

11 - Taylor-Johnson, the British artist-turned-director, got the gig almost by accident. “I just pitched up.” she laughs of the meeting, which was her first since returning to work after taking time off to have children. “I was thinking. ‘It’ll be good forme to meet the heads of the studios, and we’ll start with this’ I'm obviously better at it than I thought!”

12 - The 47 years-old director put together a mood reel for the meeting, containing clips from the likes of The Thomas Crown Affair and Last Tango In Paris, and even included one of Christian Bale as Batman, “to give a good idea of power and success and vulnerability and sex”.

13 - The screenplay was written by another Brit, Saving Mr. Banks' Kelly Marcel, who had to turn James’ first-person novel (sample line: "He’s my very own Christian Grey-flavoured popsicle") into a workable screenplay.

14 - Patrick Marber and Mark Bomback also contributed to the script, but will likely be uncredited. “If I start talking about them.” says Taylor-Johnson. “I'll probably open up a huge can of worms.” 

15 - The audition piece for Anastasia Steele was a four-page monologue from Ingmar Bergman’s masterpiece, Persona.

16 - The likes of Ryan Gosling and Garrett Hedlund were bandied around for Christian Grey, while Taylor-Johnson's husband, Aaron, had also been rumoured at one point. But on a movie already full of Johnsons, that may have been one too many.

 
17 - Charlie Hunnam and Dakota Johnson (daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith) were eventually cast in the lead roles. The stage was set for an explosive screen coupling.

18 - Not so fast. In October of 2013, Hunnam pulled out prematurely, mumbling something about scheduling conflicts and how this has never happened to him before.

19 - “It was a little galling,” says Taylor-Johnson of Hunnam s departure. “But I definitely had a sense it was coming, and that he was becoming anxious about it. It was more an anxiety of where books two and three would go. and how that would work, and stepping into such a vast unknown.”

20 - Less than two weeks after Hunnam left, Northern Irish M.T. A. Jamie Dornan, hot from the success of The Fall, replaced him. "Jamie owns Christian Grey now,” says Taylor-Johnson.

21 - Filming began in Vancouver (doubling for Seattle) in December 2013, with the working title The Adventures Of Max & Banks.

22 - The final budget was around $40 million, what Christian Grey calls “walking-around money”.

23 - Let's talk about sex. The books' sex scenes arc notoriously explicit. There was speculation that the film might go all-out to simulate that, and maybe even risk a dreaded NC-17 rating in the States.

24 - Not so, says the director. “It's a studio movie. We go pretty far. I would never be able to make a movie under a studio umbrella that's like Blue Is The Warmest Colour or In The Realm Of The Senses.”

25 - James L. Brooks advised the director to change her socks daily at 3pm during filming, and she took him up on it.

26 - She treated the sex scenes like action sequences. "I felt it was really important that each sex scene had a different character. I didn't want everyone to go, ‘Oh, they’re at it again!'" 

27 - The MPAA. which usually frowns upon regulation thrusting, granted the film an R. Marcel had previously said an NC-17 might have been a possibility, but that would have been a commercial kiss of death.

28 - The film's first trailer, which launched in July, had 93 million views, making it 2014's most popular, ahead of Avengers: Age Of Ultron and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

29 - De Luca confirmed to us that the cast had signed on for all three movies. “You would need people who would commit to a trilogy sight unseen on the strength of the scripts." However, no concrete plans have been announced for sequels. “At this stage, the studio is wisely waiting and seeing how it does,’’says Taylor-Johnson.

30 - The soundtrack includes Farned It, by The Weeknd, the video for which the Fifty Shades helmer directed just days after locking the film itself. “I'm a glutton for punishment,'' she laughs. “I'm absolutely fucking shattered.” 

31 - Some experts think there are more than 150 shades of grey. A quick search on the Dulux website reveals just 17. It’s all very confusing.
 

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY IS OUT ON FEBRUARY 13.

Jamie Dornan Once Upon a Time.

Biography

James "Jamie" Dornan was born on May 1, 1982^[1] in the town of Holywood of County Down, Northern Ireland as the youngest child out of his two elder sisters, Liesa and Jessica.^[3] His father, Professor Jim Dornan, is a doctor and the former senior vice president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Jamie's mother, Lorna,^[3] passed away from inoperable pancreatic cancer when he was just sixteen years old.^[4] In later life, his father remarried in 2002 to obstetrician and gynaecologist Samina.^[3]
Following the grim outcome of losing a parent, Jamie attended boarding school at Methodist College Belfast. One of his strong subjects was drama and was productions of Blood Brothers and Bugsy Malone. His extracurricular passion was rugby pitch; acting as winger for the Belfast Harlequins. While at Methoidst College Belfast, he met school friend David Alexander. From their similar tastes in music, they formed the folk singing band Sons of Jim,^[5] and once supported Scottish singer KT Tunstall on tour. The group disbanded in 2008.^[6]
Later, Jamie dropped out of the University of Teesside to focus on rugby, but when that didn't work out, he moved to London in 2002^[4] with the intention of enrolling in drama school. However, drinking problems spurred him from it; along with a miserable six month stint working in a Knightsbridge pub. Previously, Jamie was approached by a modelling agency in Belfast, and decided to take up on the offer and signed with Select Model Management.^[4] In the modelling industry, he posted for Hugo Boss,^[4] Dior Homme, Giorgio Armani, Calvin Klein and often paired up with big name female models Kate Moss, Lara Stone and Gisele Bündchen and actress Eva Mendes.^[4] In 2012, he gave it up to enter into the acting business.^[2]
His first movie role was in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette as an alleged love interest of the queen, portrayed by Kirsten Dunst. In film, he portrayed the lead role of Ed in the 2008 Hammer Horror production Beyond the Rave. In 2009's Shadows in the Sun, which starred three-time Academy Award nominee Jean Simmons. Following his departure from ABC's Once Upon a Time, Jamie was cast in Northern Irish crime drama The Fall as Paul Spector, a man leading a double life as a family oriented father and calculating female serial killer, opposite The X-Files alumni Gillian Anderson as sleuthing detective Stella Gibson.
Jamie married English actress and singer Amelia Warner on April 27, 2013 in Somerset. They recently welcomed their first child, a girl.

Jamie Dornan And Robert Pattinson: Hottest Drinking Buddies !

Life is about to get really, really, really exciting for Jamie Dornan.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, you surely know that the hunky Irish actor is about to make every woman in the world fantasize about him when his movie “Fifty Shades of Grey” hits theaters on Valentine’s Day.
To cope with the avalanche of fame that’s about to descend upon him, Dornan, 32, revealed in a new interview with Variety that he’s been buddying up to Robert Pattinson.
“I don’t remember what we talked about the last time I saw him,” Dornan said. “I think we just got drunk.”

The guys met after Dornan was done filming Fifty Shades, a role that Pattinson, 28, actually turned down. Yep, at one point Rob was in talks to play the infamous Christian Grey — in fact, he was reportedly author E.L. James’ first choice as well as some experts’ pick.
That coincidence aside, Dornan insists there’s no similarity between his Fifty Shades role and Pattinson’s days as the mega heartthrob Edward Cullen from the Twilight series.
“By the way, it’s not the same thing. We’re not the Twilight franchise,” he said. “We’re a different thing. Whatever my situation is, it’s going to be different from Rob’s. They are incomparable.”
He does admit, however, that his friendship with Rob has given him a little glimpse at what lies ahead.
“I’ve been around Rob long enough to see what it’s been like for him. I don’t know if it’s been a benefit to witness that. Whatever that is,” he admitted.
In fact, Dornan said the fame has already started to hit him, especially after spending Golden Globes weekend in Los Angeles and rubbing shoulders with his famous peers.
“I’m astonished at how many people are telling me my life is going to change. Everyone that I meet, especially in L.A.,” Dornan told Variety. “People who run studios or other actors or people who are strangers. Everyone has been saying that to me, ‘Are you ready?’ I don’t have a good answer to that, because I don’t know what I’m meant to be ready for. Whatever happens, happens. I’ll just roll with the punches.”
Atta boy, Jamie. And if you ever need more drink buddies to cozy up with, we volunteer as tribute.

Morality in Media criticizes R-rating for 'Fifty Shades of Grey'

Anti-pornography watchdog group Morality in Media has taken issue with Fifty Shades of Grey’s R-rating, arguing that the rating “severely undermines the violent themes in the film and does not adequately inform parents and patrons of the film’s content.”

  Fifty Shades of Grey: See Full Coverage

  MPAA gives 'Fifty Shades of Grey' R rating

Last week, the MPAA granted the film based on E L James novel an R rating for “strong sexual content including dialogue, some unusual behavior and graphic nudity.” Morality in Media takes specific issue with the MPAA’s use of the phrase “unusual behavior” to describe the content of the film. “What the term ‘unusual’ does not account for is the coercion, sexual violence, female inequality, and BDSM themes from which the entire Fifty Shades plot is based,” the statement reads. “Such a vague evaluation puts viewers at risk, sending the message that humiliation is pleasurable and that torture should be sexually gratifying.”
The group argued: “We’d like to change the MPAA rating for Fifty Shades of Grey to read: ‘Promotes torture as sexually gratifying, graphic nudity, encourages stalking and abuse of power, promotes female inequality, glamorizes and legitimizes violence against women.'”
The organization also targeted the film when the initial trailer was released, arguing that it “deceives the public with a visually appealing melodramatic love story that romanticizes and normalizes sexual violence.”