It’s got to be difficult for any author to hand their work over to filmmakers for an adaptation, but it’s got to be especially tough for someone like E.L. James who penned a book packed with material that exceeds the film’s R rating and needs changing. Sure enough, while talking to Porter Magazine, director Sam Taylor-Johnson admitted that she had some “creative fights” with the Fifty Shades of Grey author:
"It was difficult, I'm not going to lie. We definitely fought, but they were creative fights and we would resolve them. We would have proper on-set barneys, and I'm not confrontational, but it was about finding a way between the two of us, satisfying her vision of what she'd written as well as my need to visualize this person on screen, but, you know, we got there.”
In one instance, satisfying James’ vision wound up the top priority. The rest of this article addresses a Fifty Shades of Grey plot spoiler, so if you’d rather not know a certain something about the end of the movie, tune out now.
According to THR, James was given “exceptional control” by Universal after the studio bought the rights to her book for a reported $5 million, and she used that control to dictate the end of the film. James co-wrote the original script with Kelly Marcel and apparently it came to an end with the word “stop.” However, Patrick Marber’s rewrite ends with “red,” the film’s safe word. Even though Taylor-Johnson preferred Marber’s version, James insisted “stop” was the way to go and that’s what we’re getting.
If the whole issue sounds silly to you, you’re not the only one. One of THR’s insiders admits “red” was the “smarter and cooler” version, but also dubbed the issue “the most petty and ridiculous argument in the world.” On top of that, neither “stop” nor “red” is going to hit hard if everything that precedes it doesn’t play well.
On the one hand, you can say that Fifty Shades of Grey the book is a huge hit for a reason. Perhaps the filmmakers should heed James’ advice as much as possible. But, then again, we’re clearly talking about two completely different mediums here. Something that reads well on the page might not play well on screen and I suspect we’ve already seen a bit of that in the clips they’ve released, especially the playroom scene.
Even though many are guessing that the movie is a mess and the press tour has been awkward to the max, I am endlessly amused by it all. The best part about Fifty Shades of Grey is that no one knows how to talk about it, especially the lead actors. Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson cracked a few smiles in this Today Show interview, but it’s not enough to give the impression that they’re comfortable with all this erotic romance talk, or each other for that matter. You can check out the interview below which also has a brief new clip from the film at the 20-second mark.
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