By Daniel Janssen
Staff Writer
Four years of Twilight movies do not seem to have satisfied the audience’s hunger for more unhealthy romance in film. The rapid success of the Twilight-inspired erotic fan fiction Fifty Shades of Grey has not only led to the release of two more books in the Fifty Shades series, but also to an adaptation of the BDSM-ridden novel for the big screen. This Hollywood acquisition provides the world with yet another example of major studios choosing a successful literary franchise over an original screenplay, further accelerating the decrease of creativity in the movie world. Has Hollywood reached its point of no return with the Fifty Shades film?
Whilst the top ten highest grossing U.S. films in 1981 still featured seven original movies, the yearly box office looks a lot different thirty years later. Not one original film made it to the top ten in 2011, a list that is dominated by eight sequels and two adaptations. So far, 2013 has shown some sign of hope with original films Gravity and Dreamworks’ The Croods performing well enough to earn them a spot amongst the ten highest grossing movies in the United States. Economically speaking, it makes sense for contemporary Hollywood to produce more “unoriginal” movies: they simply do better at the box office.
The so-far sloppy production of Fifty Shades of Grey illustrates both the increasing importance of money in making movies as well as the declining relevance of creativity. Directly after securing the rights to make the Fifty Shades film, Universal Pictures filed a lawsuit against adult film studio Smash Pictures, a company that was in the 
process of producing a pornographic parody of the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise. The question is whether the quality of the Universal Pictures movie will indeed be better than the Smash Pictures parody of the franchise. Up until now, the production has its fair share of warning signs: cast dropouts, a pushed release date and many different writers coming on to “polish the story”, which according to literary critics, is in high need of polishing. So far, the two greatest things to have come out of this novel are its mention in my Abnormal Psychology course when discussing extraordinary sexual behavior and a Belgian toxicology study in which scientists have discovered traces of herpes in library copies of the Fifty Shades series.
Even with all the issues surrounding the original material, the studio still decided to starts its production, which turned out to be a rocky road. First, leading actor Charlie Hunnam dropped out of the project. Then, when famed screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis (known for American Psycho) showed interest in writing the screenplay, the studio chose to decline his offer. Instead, Universal Pictures went with a writer who was personally recommended by EL James, who wrote the fan fiction under the pseudonym Snowqueens Icedragon in 2011. Whether the joined writers will be able to solve the problems of the book is yet to be seen, but one thing is for sure, with its recently received NC-17 rating (No Children Under 17), the film will definitely be raunchy.
It might not be coming soon, but you can already get excited for the film now that a release date has been set. On Valentine’s Day of 2015, you will have the romantic option of inviting your partner to join you for the Fifty Shades of Grey premiere. Now that, Hollywood, is creativity.
Daniel Janssen, class of 2015, is a Psychology and International Relations major from Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands
