As fans await highly anticipated "Fifty Shades of Grey" movie adaptation to begin production, amid the lead actor originally slated to play Christian Grey having left the cast, the Hollywood Reporter recently announced that an Oscar-winning writer has been brought in to doctor up the screenplay.
Patrick Marber, an English comedian, director and screenwriter, has been hired by Universal and Focus to "polish" the screenplay written by Kelly Marcel. It's not unusual for high profile scripts to undergo some in-depth editing, accorrding to Variety, and while fans and critics alike have wondered how the mostly sex-filled novels by E. L. James will be adapted into something more than a high budget porn film, with award-winning writers on board, the script is predicted to be fleshed-out and well-written.
Recently lead actor Charlie Hunnam left the project, making it less likely that the film will begin its scheduled production by November.
"This film isn't something like a '47 Ronin' where there is a long production followed by a lot of post," one source told Variety magazine. "It should be pretty straight forward once it's up and running."
And once it is "up and running," producers hope to have it out in theaters August 2014, perhaps anticipating the series may lose steam if they wait too long get it to hungry fans.
As for Hunnam, he couldn't work out his schedule to correspond "Fifty Shades" with "Sons of Anarchy," so he had to ditch, though some have suggested he was uncomfortable with the script's graphic sexual material and perhaps uninterested in the media attention that would along with such a part.
Remaining cast members include Alexander Skarsgard, Theo James, Jamie Dornen, and Christian Cooke, with Dakota Johnson playing Anastasia Steele. The majority of fans wanted Alexis Bledel and Matt Bomer for the roles so badly that they created a petition to Universal and Focus, but to no avail, though Bomer did acknowledge the flattery in an interview with "Entertainment Tonight" last month.
“I’m so grateful for the fans and touched,” Bomer said of the petition at the time. “I’m looking forward to seeing the movie with Charlie and Dakota.”
Now that Hunnam is out of the picture, however, fans are back to casting speculation and wishes, and it's just a matter of time before the new Christian Grey is announced.
