THE FIFTY SHADES AFTERGLOW

THE FIFTY SHADES AFTERGLOW

MORE THAN A DECADE AGO, HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS STOPPED MAKING R-RATED EROTIC DRAMAS. COULD THE $94 MILLION OPENING OF FIFTY SHADES OF GREY USHER IN A NEW AGE OF CINEMATIC SEX?

FINALLY, MOVIEGOERS GOT SOME, AND NOT A MOMENT TOO SOON. Sex on screen has been in short supply since the late 1990s—a tedious stretch of cinematic celibacy not seen since before the disco era. In fact, until Jamie Dornan tied Dakota Johnson to the bedpost over Valentine’s Day weekend, scoring Fifty Shades of Grey $266 million globally in four days, it seemed as if Hollywood and the R-rated erotic drama had broken up for good. So will this mean a whole new round of makeup sex, or will it just be a weekend fling?

From the start of the 21st century, Hollywood has behaved like an old married couple, focusing more on kids and making money than getting busy in the bedroom. Not so long ago, films for grown-ups routinely counted for close to half of the annual U.S. box office. But since 2003, R-rated films haven’t crossed 35 percent—and most of those Rs were for violence and gore, not sex.

With the studios fixated on superhero and YA franchises that can play to all ages in all parts of the world, it’s no wonder that even Thor can’t get laid. “The proliferation of sexual and erotic material online and the major studios’ more general need to generate worldwide event-oriented movies left the romantic, more sensual stories without much of a place to go,” says Jeb Brody, executive producer of Fifty Shades. Indeed, of the eight films nominated for the Oscars this year, there’s little to no sex in any of them.

That erotic gap has been filled mainly by television, with premiumcable shows like Girls, The Affair, and Looking cranking out a steady stream of boundary-pushing sex. Now even broadcast has gotten into the act. There was more oral sex in the first half season of ABC’s How to Get Away With Murder than in all 10 of the highest-grossing films of 2014 combined. It’s easy to forget that it wasn’t always this way. Back in the ’90s, steamy thrillers such as Basic Instinct and Indecent Proposal were mainstream hits. What remains to be seen is whether Fifty Shades can give this neardead genre a jump start.

The odds, at first glance, aren’t great. The E L James trilogy, which has sold more than 100 million copies, is an anomaly. “Studios only want to be in business with brands these days, and [Fifty Shades] is the ultimate brand identity,” says talent agent Steve Fisher, who reps author Charlaine Harris (the Sookie Stackhouse novels) and Twilight fan-fiction author Sophie Jackson. “The brand awareness of the title is massive.”

Brand awareness doesn’t necessarily translate to ticket sales, however. Even after Universal unveiled its confident tease of a marketing campaign—complete with the slogan “Are You Curious?”—industry insiders and journalists still questioned if people would skip the theater and wait for the film to debut on VOD, where they could get their groove on in private. Only when fans began buying advance tickets online in January and selling out theaters before opening weekend did the narrative buzz around Hollywood shift to whether this phenomenon can be replicated.

It’s trickier than it may seem. “If Fifty Shades did spark a revolution in women’s erotica, I’m not seeing a bunch of [producers and studios] running out to get [the film rights to] those other books,” Brody says.

But all hope for future screen sex is not lost. Producers are scouting not just the book world but fan-fiction websites (where James launched Fifty Shades) in search of the next hot thing. Producer Jennifer Gibgot, who tried landing Fifty Shades back in 2012, found Anna Todd’s After, the wildly popular Harry Styles fan-fiction story, on the website Wattpad, after it had been read one billion times. She’s now readying it for the screen. And Sylvia Day’s Crossfire series, which usually resides just below Fifty Shades on most erotica lists and has sold more than 13 million copies, is being developed as a TV series (see sidebar).

Even if movie sex doesn’t make a comeback, the R-rated film in general seems to be getting a second shot at glory. Between the box office haul of American Sniper, the strong opening weekend of Kingsman: The Secret Service, and the upcoming foulmouthed comedies Spy starring Melissa McCarthy and Trainwreck starring Amy Schumer, Hollywood is once again catering to adult audiences. “Two years ago it was impossible to get an R-rated movie made,” says Wyck Godfrey, producer of the Twilight series and The Fault in Our Stars. “But Hollywood is realizing that movie audiences are growing up. Once you can make more R-rated films, then you can make more movies with sex in them. By osmosis, it’s going to happen.” And that just might get all of our molecules moving.

Source : EW