Whipping up a frenzy with Fifty Shades of secrecy
COPIES of the eagerly anticipated film Fifty Shades Of Grey are being guarded like the Crown Jewels. Only the director, studio chiefs and censors have seen it.
‘The security is tighter than on any other film made in Hollywood,’ director Sam Taylor-Johnson told me after she spent a whopping ten months editing the movie, completing it only on Wednesday of last week.
‘ Ordinarily, I would have screened it for people by now, but I’m not allowed to. I haven’t even been allowed a “friends and family” screening. The studio’s frightened someone will tweet, or put something about it on Facebook,’ explained the British film-maker and artist.
The film’s stars Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson have been talking about it, but they’re being watched carefully. Ms Johnson gave one interview and two ‘minders’ stayed in the room with her the whole time, monitoring every word.
Pain or gain? Jamie Dornan Meanwhile, Mr Dornan is trying not to think about what fans of E. L. James’s novels will do to him should they disapprove of his depiction of bondage billionaire Christian Grey.
‘I should stop worrying,’ he sighed when we chatted at the popular BAFTA Los Angeles Tea Party at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills.
‘What can they do? Lock me in the red room of pain?’ the actor said, referring to Grey’s secret boudoir where various acts of discipline, dominance, submission, sadism and masochism take place. I think they were referred to, euphemistically, as ‘Christian’s predilection’ in the books.
Not long to wait now for the kinky shenanigans. The film premieres at the Berlin Film Festival next month and is being whipped out for release on February 13.
Let’s hope it’s worth the pain.