International Comic-Con 2014 gets properly underway today... so what better way to mark the occasion than by watching the Fifty Shades of Grey movie trailer? Yes, author E.L. James' best-selling erotica novel (one that originated as Twilight fan-fiction written by James) is headed to the big screen, starring Dakota Johnson (Ben and Kate) as seemingly unextraordinary college student Anastasia Steele and Jamie Dornan (Once Upon a Time) as Christian Grey - the handsome, but mysterious billionaire businessman.
"I don't do romance. My tastes are very... singular," as Grey puts in the Fifty Shades of Grey trailer; that's a bit of an understatement, as Christian proves to be more than a little single-minded about controlling Anastasia... especially, in the bedroom. The theatrical preview offers a fairly tame look at Christina and Anastasia's sexual shenanigans (okay, that might not be the right word), but the film will very much be an R-Rated affair, as producer Dana Brunetti (The Social Network, Captain Phillips) has assured everyone.
You may be surprised to learn that many of the folk who worked on Fifty Shades of Grey have a respectable filmography on the level with Brunetti's. That includes director Sam Taylor-Johnson (Nowhere Boy), whose background in photography is apparent in the Fifty Shades footage and its surprisingly effective use of space within every frame. In general, the visual composition on display - also in part the handiwork of Oscar-nominated cinematographer Seamus McGarvey (Atonement, Anna Karenina) - gives the proceedings something of an arthouse look. Well, in the trailer, anyway.
It's difficult to say with much certainty based on the Fifty Shades trailer, but so far it appears that screenwriter Kelly Marcel (Saving Mr. Banks) has managed as good a job as anyone could at translating James' source material - frequently scorned for its eye-rolling prose and uninformed representation of BDSM culture - into a work of cinema with a three-act structure. Likewise, both Johnson and Dornan seem to have a firm handle on their roles as, essentially, the kinkier Bella Swan and Edward Cullen.
In short: it looks as though we're getting the best version of a Fifty Shades of Grey movie that you could reasonably expect. Fans of the book - enjoy.
Fifty Shades of Grey opens in U.S. theaters on February 13th, 2015.
Source: Universal Pictures