Director Sam Taylor-Johnson's Fifty Shades of Grey movie may no longer be a 2014 release, now set to come out on Valentines Day weekend next year, but already the marketing department behind the project is getting to work and making sure that you're ready for the film. Focus Features has unveiled the first official look at the E.L. James adaptation in the form of what they are calling a "billboard image." Basically, there's a chance that you will start seeing this design on your daily commute to work.
While I get the attempted Mad Men-esque feel that's supposed to come with the poster - with star Jamie Dornan looking all powerful as he looks over a city skyline wearing a sharp suit - I can't help but roll my eyes at it. Did we really not see enough of the "back to the camera" one-sheet design last year? Has this not been done to death?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it easier to sell a movie when it doesn't look like absolutely every other movie out there?
Really, though, Fifty Shades of Grey isn't likely to have any trouble bringing people into movie theaters. In addition to being a true-blue best seller as a novel, the film's risque subject matter will probably get people to see it - if not just so that they won't be excluded during Monday morning conversations around the water cooler.
In the film, which has been adapted by screenwriter Kelly Marcel (Saving Mr. Banks), Dakota Johnson stars as Anastasia Steele, a young litearture student working for her school newspaper. Subbing in for her roommate to work on a story, Ana sets up an interview with the wealthy and mysterious business magnate Christian Grey (Dornan) and before long the two of them find themselves enraptured in a romantic relationship that takes a turn for the kinky when they begin to experiment with bondage and sadomasochistic sex. Charlie Hunnam was initially attached to play the male lead in the film, but he wound up dropping out of the project, resulting in the production schedule being pushed and the release date moving from August 1, 2014 to February 13, 2015. The movie co-stars Eloise Mumford, Luke Grimes, Jennifer Ehle, Max Martini, and Victor Rasuk.
