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EXCLUSIVE: The auction is underway for author E.L. James’ steam potboiler 50 Shades of Grey. I’m told that offer sheets went out this morning. They include a strong list of approvals that studios usually don’t like to grant, but it hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm to land a title that spread like wildfire as an e-book, and which is envisioned as a movie that won’t need a high budget to pull off. I’m told that right now, Warner Bros, Paramount, Fox Searchlight, Sony Pictures, Universal, Paramount, New Regency, Mandate and Lionsgate/Summit Entertainment have made it to the lightning round and were invited to bid.
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This comes after the author, a TV exec from Britain, and her agent Valerie Hoskins met studios, monied production companies and producers over the past week before sending out their requests. While they listed a bunch of creative controls, they naturally did not set a price tag on the book. It’s the first of a trilogy and I’m confident that someone will be writing a seven-figure check for this one.
Yesterday, they holed up at Soho House to meet a parade of producers, but I’m not hearing that any of them are attached to the bidding at this point. It’s a fun development; the last time I’ve seen anything like this was when Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code was shopped. Sony Pictures got that one and turned it into a billion dollar business, with a third film in the works. Because of its racy subject matter, the bondage and S&M and R rating, 50 Shades of Grey probably won’t be that big but it has an undeniable following.
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don’t believe the hype.
Just for fun, who do you think will get it? My monopoly money on Sony.
What makes you think Sony will acquire it? Just curious.
I agree with the OP. Amy Pascal loves this kind of thing. It’s not a coincidence they also did The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
But the difference is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was a decent book.
Red Shoe Diaries anyone? this would do good in HBO/Cinemax late night television. As a movie it wouldn’t garner a wide enough audience.
blockbuster, art film, what?
Love this whole process… I hope that the MommyPorn fanbase shows up in theaters.
Since this is happening precisely on HUNGER GAMES Friday, it’s just beautifully orchestrated by Hoskins.
FWIW, How Many of these Suitors are playing Liar’s Poker, just bidding the price up to see which dummy has to pay for the overpriced rhinestone prize?
I think the dark horse in this race could be Searchlight. Since it’s just monopoly money, I’ll put mine on them. Agree the frontrunner is probably Sony.
I don’t understand why so many female execs are fawning over what “groundbreaking” work this is for exploration of “female sexuality” – whatever that means. It seems the book simply reheats age-old misogynistic, gendered stereotypes and gives them a veneer of legitimacy by virtue of coming from a female writer. If the two protagonists begin on unequal terms – she’s *virginal*, naive, young, relatively poor, and relatively stupid, he’s powerful, rich, intelligent, older – then it seems this book is more about the sexualization of gendered inequality than a true description of BDSM sexuality. I suppose some could argue that the power relations do not link to gendered roles, and that it’s purely about her sexual satisfaction in being completely and utterly submissive, but I find it more than a coincidence that this work plays directly into sexist, traditional notions of romance – women being attracted to power and enjoy being submissive to a worthy enough man, and men being attracted to naivete, weakness, essentially someone they can manipulate and control. While it’s great hollywood is exploring unique sexual dispositions, this, shall I say, ‘coincidence’ is more than a little troubling for feminists and those concerned with gender equality in media.
If you must get gender studies litcrit about it, you might want to consider where readers are in their lives. The Hunger Games is read by teens fantasizing about independence. Twilight is read by tweens fantasizing about sex, but still afraid of it. And 50 Shades is read by adult women, who just may be fantasizing about how great it would be to have all the sex they want, without the stress of an independent, adult life.
It sounds like somebody needs a good spanking…
You’ll realize how misinformed you sound after you’ve read the book, rather than just the back of the cover (or rather yet, reviews written by others). Do your research on what you’re writing about before you type away at your computer, for the sake of your own intelligence.
Really the tragedy is how badly, badly written it is. Total dreck.
What is more of a tragedy is that you are understating just how horrible it is.
There really is no proper phrase to describe how bad it is.
Wikipedia says “Originally developed from fan fiction based on the Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer”
Submissive mommy porn coming from Twilight? Not really surprised…
Hey Anyone else concerned — Hilarious. it SEEMS you may want to read the book before pontificating what it SEEMS to be about. To me…it SEEMS funny to me most of the producers in the mix are men who miss the mark and think, like you, it’s about bondage or S&M. It’s a love story.
hahah what’s funny is you think I’m a man. I’m not. I also enjoy bdsm practices as a submissive and am aware that real people are up in arms about this gross misrepresentation. I’ve read some of the book and was so disgusted with the basic premise and assumptions that I did not care to continue. And “romance” within a heterosexist culture is not quite as nice as you perceive it to be. You’re only socially conditioned to believe so. Take a close look at the tropes of so-called romance novels and you’ll see it very often relies on this unequal power dynamic coded as “romance.” I’ll leave you with a quote about these ‘harlequin’ romances that you place on a pedalstal.
“The men [in these novels] are not sexy solely because they are physically attractive, or because they appear to be good lovers; or rather, they are sexy to the extent that they demonstrate the characteristics associated with male lovers under patriarchy, namely that they are confident in wielding power. And the sex in these books does not begin with “passionate lovemaking” (quote sourced from the guidelines); each time the male romantic exercises power, that exercise of power does not just contribute to the reader’s “blistering sexual anticipation”; it is experienced directly as sex by the female protagonist. As she experiences male power, she trembles, she flushes, she falls in love; her world is penetrated and violated by the male presence.”
All of the above exactly describes the text in question and most other ‘romance’ novels. Gross and yes, sexist. It SEEMS you have missed the point of my post.
Wow…
All published BY WOMEN FOR WOMEN in the last few years (check out amazon, it goes on and on):
“Bought for the Frenchman’s Pleasure”
“The Italian’s Captive Virgin”
“Blackmailed Into Marriage”
“Mistress to the Merciless Millionaire”
“The Greek’s Innocent Virgin”
“Captive In His Bed”
Are you aware that 99.9% of the authors and readers of these romance novels are female? And that they are the most popular genre in modern literature in North America?
You say they are “gross and sexist”… but apparently that’s what your fellow women voraciously read and write.
Food for thought, before you blame “Man’s Patriarchal Society”.
Wow…
All published BY WOMEN FOR WOMEN in the last few years (check out amazon, it goes on and on):
“Bought for the Frenchman’s Pleasure”
“The Italian’s Captive Virgin”
“Blackmailed Into Marriage”
“Mistress to the Merciless Millionaire”
“The Greek’s Innocent Virgin”
“Captive In His Bed”
Are you aware that 99.9% of the authors and readers of these romance novels are female? And that they are the most popular genre in modern literature in North America?
You say they are “gross and sexist”… but apparently that’s what your fellow women voraciously read and write.
Food for thought, before you blame “Man’s Patriarchal Society”.
AMEN. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
And I heard if James doesn’t have complete control from locations to casting to trailers, she’s not taking the deal.
She could walk away with nothing.
Dear Lord I’m hoping that James is going to be involved in casting the movie. That way maybe we can get Robert Pattinson to play the lead. Do you know how many women’s heads would literally explode if Rob actually got to play 50? This started out as a Twilight Fanfiction called “Master of the Universe”. Every woman who read this originally imaged him doing all the things described in the book. He would be absolutely perfect for the role and it would make SOOOO many fans happy. Please Hollywood, make this happen.
This bidding war is the best example ever of the emperor’s new clothes.
There must be a thousand erotic books that are better written than this crappy book and more original. But they didn’t get the internet exposure and media hype that this trashy book got so nobody wants to make movies from them.
Agreed. So how did this take over and become such a big deal? How do they whip up hype like this??
To answer your question, the reason why this book has gained so much hype is because it already had a huge fan base to start with. The readers of the original Twilight fanfiction version is what made this book the success it is today. They are the ones who started spreading the word about the book and supporting Icy when she decided to pull and publish this with different names other than Edward and Bella. If not for the support of the Twilight fans, this book would have gone nowhere!
What SEEMS funny to me is that whenever anyone has something not so gushing about the book, or how sick and twisted it is, it’s automatically assumed that whoever it is hasn’t read the book, or books in this matter. I’ve had the unfortunate experience to have read both the books and the fan fic, and it’s not something I would ever admit to ANYone I know. They were both as equally poorly written and for something that is supposed to be a “love story”, THAT misses the mark. I thought the books would HAVE to be an improvement on the fan fiction story, but it was disappointingly nearly a carbon copy in more places than not, with a word or two tweaked here or there. It’s a little bit of story, with an ANNOYING female protagonist, who’s favorite phrases are “Oh my” and “Holy Shit”, with an occasional “Oh Crap!” thrown into the mix, and used in aggravating frequency. And the male protagonist, there are just no words for him, except ‘stay away the hell from me.’ And the only thing that drew me to the story in the first place was everything I’d heard about the BDSM elements and how “hot” Edward/Christian was, so it wasn’t any of THAT subject matter that bothered me. It was the flat, one-dimensional, frustrating or just downright disturbing characters that make your skin crawl and not in a pleasant way at all, and tired worn out storyline, and that just never picked up.
As a woman of almost forty, I would RATHER read books such as Harry Potter and Twilight, and hell, even a lot of those four dollar Harlequin novels in the book aisle at Walmart. As non-stellar as the writing might be in all aforementioned examples but Harry Potter, they do at least have more compelling story lines and more often than not, better than single dimension characters. And not an overpriced $10 ebook (while the paperback was nearly $30, which I won’t pay for a reputable, non-self-published authors HARDcover)
I’ve just started reading it, and the book is dreadful. The main character is almost non-existent. She’s just a generic, bland young woman. Christian is ridiculous. 27 and a multi-billionaire. And I’m supposed to believe he’s brilliant, because he plays the piano and flies a helicopter, but there is nothing particularly intelligent that he says, nor am I impressed with his obsession with this girl. The Anne Rice porn books were a thousand times better.
I hope Summit sues, because you can still see where this book is based on Twilight. The only characteristics Anna seems to have are the same ones Bella does, and there are lines that are almost directly lifted from Twilight, just slightly tweaked.
Bingo! I am guessing the age range is 30-50 are definitely the target.
Variety is reporting that Amy Pascal offered $5 million for the rights. If that is the high bid then they are inviting a lawsuit for copyright infringement from Team Twilight. This book began as Bella/Edward slash fiction. There’s no way that Summit will sit idly by and let Sony make this movie when it’s based on characters that Stephenie Meyer created. I don’t see how this book can be sold for that astronomical amount when it’s a derivative work. Sony would have to pay Meyer and Summit $15 million in damages.
The likely scenario is that Lionsgate/Summit acquires the rights for just one million bucks and Ms. James will have to take it to avoid being sued for $5 million. If she takes Amy’s $5 million there won’t be any movie Ms. James will spend all her time in court explaining to a jury how and why she wrote her fan fiction and what it was based on. Her legal fees would be enormous.
I have been wondering how Fifty would be made into a movie since it’s based off of Twilight. The Characteristics of Edward and Bella and even Robert Pattinson are all over the book.
The basic story is–controlling guy who likes BSDM/meets a girl/they get together/break up/he changes for her. The bdsm has nothing to do wtih Twilight. Could the movie be made changing some of Christian/Edward’s characteristics?
Jeeez, it’s just a book!!! I am sure the author will not mind your critiques as that check gets cashed! I loved it…bring on more of it. Life gets somewhat mundane when you’re married with small kids…it made me want to have sex, a lot of it! And my husband was A-ok with me reading all 3 in the space of 1 week.