When a popular book is about to become a movie, invested fans want to see the absolute most perfect actors cast in the roles of their favorite characters. So it's no surprise that fans would be particularly vocal about the recent casting news for the feature adaptation of E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey. The books have continued to grow in popularity since the first one was published in 2011, and with the movie on the way, fans are eager to see the story brought to life on the big screen. But many of those fans aren't so thrilled with the casting choices for lead characters Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey. Ben and Kate's Dakota Johnson has signed on to play Ana, while Sons of Anarchy's Charlie Hunnam will play the wealthy businessman Christian.
Fifty Shades fans have taken to the internet to complain about the casting of these two actors, even going as far as to start a petition (Via CBS News) filled with lots of caps locked words demanding White Collar's Matt Bomer and Gilmore Girls' Alexis Bledel play the leads.
Matt Bomer is the PERFECT DESCRIPTION OF CHRISTIAN GREY AND ALEXIS BLEDEL IS THE PERFECT ACTRESS TO REPRESENT ANASTASIA STEELE and if THEY ARE NOT, NOBODY WILL BE And I read the whole trilogy and I can assure that Matt is the perfect actor for this movie and Alexis too. So please PLEASE, all of the GREYsessed and Bomerettes in the world NEED those actors. They always will be for us the Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele. WE CAN DO ANYTHING GUYS, ANYTHING.
The petition hit the 2,000 signature mark on September 2, the day the casting news broke, and has since increased to almost twenty-thousand signatures. But will it make a difference? It seems unlikely. And to reinforce that theory, we have these tweets from producer Dana Brunetti:
Brunetti makes valid points. As much as fans want to dream-cast their most anticipated movies, when it comes down to it, actors are people with schedules and their own preferences for what roles they're willing and interested to play.
In terms of the preference for Bomer and Bledel, I'll admit, on looks, they would make a very pretty couple and it's not hard to picture them in the lead roles. With that said, even if they were available and interested in playing the roles -- I've seen no confirmation on that for either actor -- we don't even know if they would have had the screen chemistry with one another to pull it off. While readers may have an easy time picturing their faces in the the roles of Christian and Ana, there's no way to know if they'd actually click on screen, and it seems like that should be as high a priority as their looks are, if not higher, given the nature of the story.
It's been reported that Hunnam and Johnson did a "chemistry" test so they could confirm that the two worked well together on screen. With that in mind, it seems evident that the producers are looking to capture the same chemistry and romance that gelled in the book. We'll find out if they're right when the film hits theaters August 1, 2014.
