While Dakota Johnson has starred in plenty of projects, she is widely known for her work with Jamie Dornan in the Fifty Shades trilogy based on E.L. James’ erotic books. With Rotten Tomatoes scores of 24%, 11%, and 11% chronologically, the trilogy has received an immense amount of negativity from critics and audiences. The trilogy made Dakota Johnson known worldwide and got her an MTV Awards nomination for Best Breakthrough Performance.
Despite this, her time on the sets of Sam Taylor-Johnson’s films was not a pleasant one. Why? Well, for starters, the disagreements between the director and the author of the books made it absolutely tiring for the actors. The film was also too different from what she thought it would be. So much so that Dakota Johnson truly believes no one would’ve done the film if they knew what it was going to be like.
Dakota Johnson Had a Tough Time on the Sets of Fifty Shades
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Dakota Johnson stated that she “signed up to do a very different version of the film [she] ended up making.” While filmmaker Sam Taylor-Johnson had brought screenwriter Patrick Marber to polish the script for the film, author Erika L. James ended up scrapping it entirely. This was after Charlie Hunnam stepped away from the role of Christian Grey. Johnson added, “It just became something crazy. There were a lot of different disagreements.”
Johnson went on to say that James had a lot of unprecedented control over the film and this led to a lot of “mayhem” on the set where the crew would film scenes the way James wanted them to and the way they wanted to as well.
“[James] had a lot of creative control, all day, every day, and she just demanded that certain things happen. There were parts of the books that just wouldn’t work in a movie, like the inner monologue, which was at times incredibly cheesy. It wouldn’t work to say out loud. It was always a battle. Always … We’d do the takes of the movie that [James] wanted to make, and then we would do the takes of the movie that we wanted to make … It was like mayhem all the time.”
Talking about how the films turned out to be completely different from what she thought they’d be, Johnson recalled how her audition had her read a piece from Swedish filmmaker and screenwriter Ingmar Bergman’s Persona. Of course, this gave Johnson all the wrong ideas. And while she doesn’t regret starring in the steamy trilogy, she believes that if she had known the reality, neither she nor anyone else would’ve done the film.
“I was like, ‘Oh, this is going to be really special.’ If I had known at the time that’s what it was going to be like, I don’t think anyone would’ve done it. It would’ve been like, ‘Oh, this is psychotic.’ But no, I don’t regret it.”
Despite all the troubles and the negative press, the trilogy made a combined total of $1.3 billion at the box office.
Literary Agent Talks about E.L. James’ Involvement in the Films
According to Literary Agent Julian Friedman, an author’s excessive involvement in films or TV shows can either be a good thing or the absolute worst idea. Talking to The Guardian about this issue, he named three well-known authors and talked about how their involvement hurt or benefited the films, and it doesn’t look like he’s a big fan of Fifty Shades’ James!
“Sometimes a novelist’s input can work and sometimes it backfires. JK Rowling might be the most extreme example, in that she’s hands-on in everything, and yet I have the sense that she also listens and takes advice; that she’s a rational person. I though Gillian Flynn did a pretty good script for Gone Girl. But E.L. James, I don’t know. I personally thought the first film was dreadful.”
Do you think authors should have such extreme control when it comes to turning their books into films/TV? Or should they let go of the reins a little bit and give creators some creative liberty?
You can stream the Fifty Shades trilogy on Max.
Source: Vanity Fair
