Since it’s been long obvious that Bret Easton Ellis’ enthusiastic, bizarro campaign to shepherd the 50 Shades Of Grey novels to the screen (and simultaneously self-destruct on twitter) wasn’t going to work out, it’s still been a question mark who would actually get the gig. Until now. Turns out a writer now deep in the Disney machine will be writing the script- Kelly Marcel.
Marcel’s most visible achievement so far has been co-creating Terra Nova, the time-traveling scifi drama didn’t get picked up past its first season. You know, one of the many Spielberg TV joints- the one with dinosaurs I think. Most recently, Marcel was announced as the screenwriter behind the big Disney, Tom Hanks production of Saving Mr. Banks, about Walt Disney and Mary Poppins writer P.L. Travers.
50 Shades Of Grey is of course the relatively tame BDSM erotica novels that have crossed over into the mainstream because of their link to the Twilight franchise, and because an erotica novel with some success as an ebook became a self-perpetuating cultural meme. Like Twilight, it’s an utterly unremarkable piece of shit relative to its genre (you could have throw a stone 6 years ago in the Barnes & Noble teen lit section and hit any number of “paranormal romance” novels better written or more interesting than Twilight) , and almost seems to be successful because it is so shittily written and casually misogynist. It’s literally a push and pull effect- more people are only going to read it because it’s criticized so much. In any event, the phenomenon inspired Universal to drop some serious coin to be the ones to exploit this easily sapped market.
Oh well, I guess housewives need to have their little worlds rocked from time to time, and this is as good as anything to pretend at being dangerous with. Now it’s just a matter of what director sells their soul for the fifty shades of green that comes with this shit gig.
Source | E.L. James (definitely not Deadline’s bullshit “exclusive” that posted five minutes later)