News Digest

Fifty Shades director ‘wants out’ of film trilogy after ‘creative fights’ with author

Fifty Shades Of Grey director Sam Taylor-Johnson wants to quit the hit film franchise after clashing with writer EL James, it has been reported. The film-maker, believed to have signed a contract tying her to a planned trilogy, has admitted her relationship with the novelist was “difficult”. She said the duo suffered “creative fights”. The big-screen adaptation of the erotic novel stars Jamie Dornan as suave businessman Christian Grey, who seduces college student Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) into an S&M relationship.

We would have proper on-set barneys, and I’m not confrontational, but it was about finding a way between the two of us, satisfying her vision of what she’d written as well as my need to visualise this person on screen.

Sam Taylor-Johnson

There are two more books in the series - Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed. James, who has sold millions of copies of the first novel and its sequels ‘Fifty Shades Darker’ and ‘Fifty Shades Freed’ has a $4.6 million contract to help bring all the novels to the screen, and is said to have extensive creative control. A source told the UK’s The Sun newspaper: “That made life on set completely impossible for Sam. Directors usually have the ultimate control over what goes on in a movie, but in this case Erica was questioning literally the most minor things.”

Universal has not yet announced anything pertaining to sequels.

Universal Pictures statement