The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Faith-based flick following ‘Fifty’
NEW YORK — Brittany Brown wouldn’t miss the opening of the “Fifty Shades of Grey” movie for anything. She has read and re-read all three books, uses the app, follows FSOG role play on Twitter and set her DVR to record trailers for the highly anticipated Valentine’s weekend release.
But ditching her boyfriend for her gal gang of superfans was problematic.
“Feb. 14 is actually his birthday. He’ll go out with his guy friends and I’ll see FSOG with my friends. Later that evening we’ll all meet up to party. We’ll celebrate Valentine’s Day on Sunday as a couple,” said Brown, a 22-year-old public relations intern in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Three years in the waiting, the opening of the erotic romance on sweethearts’ weekend will be a breathless affair for “Fifty” die-hards everywhere.
Some will have husbands in tow. Some already have tickets. And those book groups of mommies that helped propel the bondage story to more than 100 million copies sold? They’ll be crowding theaters, too.
Lyss Stern in New York will be one of them with 50 friends, including some very expectant ones.
“Hopefully nobody will go into labor,” she laughed.
The ticket-buying site Fandango said pre-sales have propelled “Fifty Shades” into the 15-year-old company’s all-time Top 5 for R-rated selections. Several hundred screenings have already sold out. Some are in unanticipated hot spots, including Tupelo, Mississippi, and Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Jenna Mulford, manager of a two-screen independent cinema in Iowa Falls, Iowa, will have quite a weekend on her hands. At her Metropolitan Opera House, which it once was, she’ll offer the faith-based “Old Fashioned,” a sweet look at abstinence outside of marriage, along with “Fifty Shades.”
She’s sure there will be crossover, and a lively lobby conversation or two. Mulford reached out to churches in her area to make sure they knew “Old Fashioned” was coming while fielding numerous queries for “Fifty.”
“The curiosity is going to pull them toward one and their faith is going to pull them toward the other,” Mulford predicted.
Outscreened and outfinanced, the creators of “Old Fashioned” held its release to open against “Fifty Shades,” poking fun along the way in trailers that flash cheeky taglines. “Love is ... anything but grey,” reads one.
Rik Swartzwelder stars in “Old Fashioned” as smalltown antiques dealer Clay Walsh, a porn king turned Christian (of the religious, not Grey variety) who refuses to be alone with any woman he’s not married to, including a free spirit who rents the apartment above his shop.
He also wrote, directed and co-produced the movie, booked into about 200 theaters — including some in metro Atlanta, and helped position it as the David up against the kinky Goliath on Valentine’s weekend.
“It seemed like a unique time to say let’s have this discussion,” Swartzwelder said of the sexually disparate selections. “Who do we want to be?”