It doesn’t get repeated often enough, but Fifty Shades of Grey started as Twilight S & M fan fiction written under the name “Snowqueens Icedragon.” (It’s unclear whether there was an apostrophe). Then, like an existentialist’s most masochistic boner fantasy about the animal nature of mankind, it spread through society like a venereal disease, eventually coming to encompass

“Well, there is going to be a lot of sex in the film,” [screenwriter Kelly Marcel - pictured] says breezily. “It will be rated NC-17 [18 here]. It’s going to be raunchy.” While they are not toning it down — “We are 100% going there” — some of the sex scenes have had to be edited out in order to get some plot in. “We did go through and decide which are our favourites and which are not,” she concedes. “Most of them are in there, but I can’t say more than that.” By “we”, she means herself and EL James.

Marcel has just returned to her house and dogs in Twickenham, after spending 10 days hanging out with the author in LA, poring over Fifty Shades in James’s hotel room, “with me going, ‘I just love Christian Grey, I feel…’ ” she sighs theatrically, “‘very deeply for him.’ ”

Did she then point at her vagina? I hope she then pointed at her vagina. “But why did you say ‘very deeply’ twice?” “I didn’t.

Discussing the finer points of Grey’s performance became second nature, so much so that at one point, when they were discussing the “contract” in the book (what Anna will and won’t agree to sexually), the maid came in “and we just carried on talking, ‘Fisting or no fisting?’ And suddenly she stopped dead. The poor maid. It was hilarious.” [TheSundayTimes]

Poor maids, they don’t know nothin’ about sex without Arnold Schwarzenegger there to demonstrate. Anyway, the script isn’t finished, no one has been cast yet, and the interview never follows up on whether the movie will include fisting like the book apparently does. But I’m guessing yes. I mean, it is a love story.

The copyright owner of EL James’ Fifty Shades of Grey, and Universal, the studio producing the film adaptation, are suing the producers of Fifty Shades of Grey: A XXX Adaptation. The sticking point here being the “a XXX adaptation” part, as opposed to the more lawsuit-resistant “a XXX parody.” Meanwhile, let’s not forget that Fifty Shades of Grey itself started out as a porn adaptation of Twilight, which is where this banner image came from:

“Snowqueens Icedragon” was E.L. James’ original pen name. (Hey, writers, stop it with the phony initials-for-names).

The Fifty Shades trilogy was developed from a Twilight fan fiction originally titled “Master of the Universe” and published episodically on fan-fiction websites under the pen name “Snowqueen’s Icedragon”. The piece featured characters named after Stephenie Meyer’s characters in Twilight, Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. After comments concerning the sexual nature of the material, James removed the story from the fan-fiction websites and published it on her own website, FiftyShades.com. Later she rewrote Master of the Universe as an original piece, with the principal characters renamed Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele and removed it from her website prior to publication.

So, a porn adaptation suing a porn adaptation, basically. This would be meta if it weren’t so asinine.

Smash Pictures and James Lane (“Jim Powers”) evidently thought [Fifty Shades of Grey was screaming to be made into porn]. The makers of Fifty Shades of Grey: a XXX Adaptation are now being taken to court over an what the plaintiffs call a “willful attempt to capitalize on the reputation of the book.”
Last summer, L.A. Weekly reviewed the potential porn film of the book franchise, saying, “While parodies are the only way adult film studios can make any money these days, making a ‘Fifty Shades’ version is truly the only way to put the three erotic novels on film in their BDSM glory without MPAA censorship and film industry finger-wagging.”
Want to bet?
In that same article, Smash exec Stuart Wall gave the publication a quote, saying, “Since they are going to make a mainstream [film] of the books, too, dabbling in the adult world we’re choosing to go with a XXX adaption which will stay very true to the book and its S&M-themed romance.”

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"Pweeze stop negwecting me!"

Last we checked in on the Fifty Shades of Grey book trilogy, author Erika Leonard – AKA E.L. James, AKA Snowqueen Icedragon – was sitting pretty and incredibly wealthy in the Top 4 spots on the USA Today’s Best-Selling Books List. Of course, how can three books take up four spots? Because the paperback bundle of the entire trilogy is in 4th place. Take that, books that some other losers wrote!

And the last we checked in on the possibility of a Fifty Shades film, there were outrageous rumors that Angelina Jolie might sign on to direct. Sure, we scoffed at that, but it turns out there are some pretty big producers working on what will indeed be a film trilogy produced by Universal Pictures. Michael De Luca (The Social Network, Moneyball) and Dana Brunetti (The Social Network, 21) now stand before millions of horny women who will kill them if they screw this up.

Universal Pictures and Focus Features secured rights to the Fifty Shades trilogy for $5 million in March and have since been looking to fill roles for on screen and behind the scenes.

“At its core, Fifty Shades of Grey is a complex love story, requiring a delicate and sophisticated hand to bring it to the big screen,” Universal Pictures co-chairman Donna Langley said in an announcement. (Via Mashable)

Just $5 million? That seems like a hell of a bargain for what’s sure to be a surefire blockbuster trilogy. I suppose that leaves more money available for Universal to throw $20 million per film at Michael Fassbender so he can pretty much guarantee that no guys ever get laid again.

RELEVANT UPDATE: Dana Brunetti is friends with porn stars so he’s god a solid background.

[source]

Yes, Fifty Shades of Grey now makes up the top FOUR spots on the best-seller list. I could handle three spots, but FOUR?! THIS IS THE FINAL STRAW, EARTH!

Apparently having the top three titles on USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list for seven straight weeks isn’t enough for E.L. James.
This week, the queen of erotica has the top four titles for the first time.
Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed are again Nos. 1, 2 and 3. The Fifty Shades Trilogy Bundle, all three books in a paperback boxed set (also available in e-book form), moves to No. 4 from No. 10.
The trilogy follows the erotic relationship between a college graduate and her billionaire entrepreneur boyfriend. It has sold 15 million copies in all formats. [USAToday]

Want your mind blown? Go check out Fifty Shades of Grey‘s Wikipedia page, where you’ll learn that it started out as Twilight fan-fiction written under the name “Snowqueen’s Icedragon.” Furreal. My mind needed a cigarette after I read that. In related news, Burnsy and I are thinking of publishing some of our erotic Frat-Fic under the name “Bropeen’s Iceluge.” Not to be a tease, but the Edward Fortyhands scene is so f*cking sexy, bros, you will puke.

Anyway, deride it as “mommy porn” all you want, literary bad boy Bret Easton Ellis has already expressed interest in writing the movie adaptation. Has the author of American Psycho offered to adapt YOUR fan fiction? Yeah, I thought not. Suck these jean jackets, haters.

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Feed your cat, ladies.

I don’t even know where to start with this, but here we go. Erika Leonard, AKA E.L. James AKA Snowqueen Icedragon, is one of the smartest people on the planet. With what writing and storytelling experience that she had, she created an empire by piggybacking on Stephanie Meyer’s success by writing erotic fan fiction for lonely women on Twilight message boards, using the names Edward Cullen and Bella Swan in her story, Master of the Universe.

Then a funny thing happened – she realized that Twilight fans will buy anything and she turned her ripped off stories into the original book, 50 Shades of Grey. Now a best-selling excuse for guys to go play golf, Grey is, of course, being adapted into a film, because women already paid $20 for a book so why wouldn’t they spend $12 to see Christian Grey beat Anastasia Steele with a whip? Let’s start the rumor mill, shall we?

A fun rumor went around Hollywood this past weekend: Angelina Jolie, people were saying, had been approached to direct the movie version of the steamy romance novel Fifty Shades of Grey.

… sources said there may have been an informal conversation but that nothing was real, and reps for the actress-turned-filmmaker say there haven’t been any talks with studio Focus Features (Focus also denied the rumor). (Via THR)

Tell you what – if Angelina Jolie agrees to direct 50 Shades of Grey, I will not only read the entire 3-book series, but I will also start my own erotic fan fiction website called “Fitty Shades of C-Tates”. And as excited as that may make some of you – *stares at Jacktion!* – ain’t gonna happen.

But Focus could hire a sock puppet to direct this thing and it won’t matter because 50 Shades is the hottest thing on the planet. How hot? It has made the sex toy and hardware industries blow the f*ck up.

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