Entertainment

'Fifty Shades' First Footage Isn't Sexy — Huh?

by Christine DiStasio

But, what about the Red Room? Universal debuted the first footage from Fifty Shades of Grey at CinemaCon on Tuesday and it sounds like it'll be a lot more romantic and less sexual than E.L. James' books. The Hollywood Reporter revealed that the footage mostly focused on the courtship between Jamie Dornan's Christian Grey and Dakota Johnson's Anastasia Steele and there was hardly any "sexy stuff" to speak of. We knew that director Sam Taylor-Johnson had dialed back on the sex scenes, but we didn't know he was filming the next great romance film.

THR reported Universal Pictures chairman Donna Langley ended the companies presentation (which included looks at Angelina Jolie's Unbroken and Fast 7) with footage from the highly anticipated film adaptation of E.L. James' ridiculously successful novel. Langley announced the footage by saying, "Nobody outside the studio has seen a frame of footage," and then revealed the clip. Which sounds like they played it really safe and like super-fans of the series, led by Oprah Winfrey, are going to be so disappointed that they might revolt.

The footage — which came with no announcement of an official trailer release date for the film — featured the iconic novel scene where Christian Grey's assistant says to Anastasia, "Mr. Grey will see you now." At least their dialogue is spot on? The rest of the footage featured scenes in coffee shops, at the hardware store where Anastasia works, and in Grey's helicopter while he tries to woo his new submissive. All are familiar and popular locations featured in James' novel. But according to THR and HitFix, there was only a quick glimpse of Johnson wearing a black blindfold in a red room and a ghost image of her with what looks like a horse-hair soft whip being brushed across her face.

For all of you hoping that the 50 Shades adaptation was going to be a sex-filled, borderline pornographic adventure — you're going to be disappointed. (Even though you should probably already know that it won't be that crazy.) At least, you'd be disappointed by Tuesday's footage, which paints a much more romantic picture than the complicated and passionate relationship between a dominant and a submissive. Universal's clip alluded to the impending "conflict" of the film — Anastasia's reluctance to enter the lifestyle — but really, it was just a lot of Grey doting on her. Not really the same as the explicit sexual trysts from the novel, but I guess you can only take a first-look so far as to not alienate anyone. And it seems like that's exactly what Universal did — went PG so as to keep anticipation high and everyone on board.

THR's Rebecca Ford tweeted that, aside from the lack of sexual scenarios, the footage was very loyal to the books. But James' Fifty Shades of Grey is all about sex and the sexual relationship between its two main characters — how loyal can the film be if it's going PG?