Fifty Shades Of Grey: 10 Ways It Tricks People Into Liking It

3. The Author Has Creative Control (And They Tried To Hide That)

Fifty Shades Of Grey's creative prospects hinged on how far it could distance itself from the unbridled smut of the source novel. It didn't need to become unrecognisable, but there's needed to more of a point to it than just getting forty-somethings weak in the knees. The entire production, however, seemed to be working against that, with Universal doing little to broaden the audience and, more damagingly, E. L. James holding a significant creative control over the project. Not that they'd tell you that - it's such a downer on the film that the studio tried to keep that quiet. Creator involvement isn't an inherently bad thing, often ensuring the point of the original work isn't squished under a big budget production. J. K. Rowling loomed large over the Harry Potter series, decreeing only British actors could star and occasionally butting in to keep the filmmakers on track (Kreacher was almost cut from The Order Of The Phoenix until the author stepped in). E. L. James has exercised similar power, insisting her dialogue remain unchanged from being as wooden as Oak Furniture Land and providing detailed floor plans of Christian Grey's flat. The problem is, James is in no way suited for being given such unbridled creativity. The whole idea comes from a completely unoriginal place (save observations that Harry Potter is an amalgamation of various mythologies for the comments) and it's not like her creative juices are what made Fifty Shades so prolific. Someone who wrote fan-fiction on the Internet is now telling professional screenwriters and set designers how to do their job. Isn't that one of the most depressing parts of this whole mess?