In a surprise casting move, Universal Pictures announced this week that Irish actor and former Calvin Klein underwear model 
Jamie Dornan will play young billionaire Christian Grey in the film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey. The 31-year-old, who TV viewers know from his roles as Sheriff Graham Humbert on Once Upon a Time and killer Paul Spector on The Fall, is taking over as leading man after Charlie Hunnam stepped down earlier this month due to “scheduling conflicts” (codewords for avoiding career suicide by starring in this movie).
Read on…
Not being much of a network TV watcher, I’m not familiar with “Once Upon A Time” or “The Fall” and haven’t seen Mr. Dornan’s acting performance, but the mention of him being a Calvin Klein underwear model sure got my attention! I don’t care if his Irish accent is so thick he sounds like a James Joyce poetry slam on Guinness – let’s go see this guy in his tighty whities!
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Okay, So far so good. Let’s see how he kisses….
Now I can’t help myself! I need to go to Youtube and see some pirated clips of him in video. As the Fifty Shades character he is playing, Christian Grey, is a Male Dom Sado-Masochist (well, a gentle, self-absorbed and Emo one anyway), the only role he’s played that is even similar is The Sheriff in “Once Upon A Time”. Let’s take a look at how Jamie can play the strong, dominating lead for some clue of how he will shape the Christian Grey character…
Aside from pretty much getting his ass handed to him by a pissed-off apple-picking lady at the 3:30 mark of the clip, yeah, I can see this guy slipping right into the Christian Grey role. After all, Christian is not a very “mean” MaleDom. He wears his emotions on his sleeve and has lots of unresolved childhood issues that make him more complex and lovable than some 350 pound traditional MaleDom from Cleveland wearing chaps and a leather hood with a chain saw in the back of the pickup truck just outside.
Here are some other fun facts about Jamie Dornan:
- He used to be a great rugby player and even considered going pro for a bit after playing as a student at Methodist College in Belfast.
- He dated Keira Knightley from 2003 to 2005 after meeting the actress on an Asprey photoshoot.
- He toured with “Black Horse And The Cherry Tree” singer KT Tunstall with his band Sons of Jim in 2005.
- He’s married to English actress and singer-songwriter, Amelia Warner.
Okay. All of the “fun facts” are in the “who cares?” file. Onward…….
Not to shortchange Dakota Johnson in this article, I’m now pressing the rewind button to refresh our memories. It has, after all, been a few months since she was cast as Anastasia, got a blast of publicity for a week, and now has been sitting around twiddling her fingers for the Fifty Shades shooting schedule after Charlie bailed on short notice).
The great and powerful Wikipedia tells us:
Dakota Mayi Johnson (born October 4, 1989) is an American fashion model and actress, best known for her lead role in the short-lived Fox sitcom Ben and Kate (2012–2013). She has been cast in the lead role of Anastasia Steele in the upcoming film adaptation Fifty Shades of Grey, set for release in 2014. She is the daughter of actors Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith.
Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith? I’m just going to keep my sarcastic trap shut about that “odd bedfellow” match from the days of big hair and sideburns. Wikipedia tells us that her step-father is Antonio Banderas which somehow just makes it all even a little stranger. No wonder this gal agreed to play a 27 year old virgin with no computer skills that gets into light bondage antics with some guy with mommy issues.
Thankfully, Universal Pictures already cut and released a “pre-buzz” trailer for the movie with Dakota in in. Charlie Hunnam is also in it before he bailed on the project and through the magic of “fix it on post”, I’m fairly sure that we’ll be seeing a new version of this momentarily with Jamie Dornan in it.
Dakota does have some acting chops though and may help carry relative novice Jamie Dorman through what promise to be dialogue-intensive scenes which will certainly remind movie viewers of a Dostoyevsky novel come to life (without the well-crafted plots, character development or artistic merit). Her acting credits include her breakout role as “Sondra” in the 1999 film “Crazy in Alabama (which was directed by her step-dad, Antonio Banderas, which is kind of sweet), followed by some good roles and performances the following several years in “The Social Network”, “For Ellen”, and “the Five Year Engagement”.
While we wait for the film release, I did what any dutiful film maker does. Popped open Photoshop, and then using some existing photos, did a little “pre-visualization” of what this might look like in the final release of the film.
Thus, the die is cast for the Fifty Shades movie, now gracing the film with Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson. The “projected release date” holds firm at August 1st, 2014, which tells us a lot of the lack of confidence that Universal Pictures and the theatrical release distribution network have in the film. Common knowledge in Hollywood is ANY film with a July, August or early September theatrical release has already been shit-canned by the studio execs, and the goal is to bum rush these films as quickly in and out of theaters as possible to try to break even on the DVD, VoD and cable sales (remember “Lovelace?” and James Franco’s “Cherry”?)
We shall see! The silver lining on this is the almost certainty that everyone that read the book (70 million and counting) will probably go see the movie at the cinema. Do the math: 70 million ladies (and dutiful male spouses) all shell out $15 on a movie ticket = $1,050,000,000. Yep. that’s cracking a BILLION dollars, gentle readers (Star Wars did 1.4 Billion combined for 9 parts). The other windfall of this is for the sex toy stores and distributors who I am hoping are stocking up on as many ben-wa balls and zip-ties as possible to avoid back-orders when a billion Susies From Middle-America come home after the show and want to buy what they saw in the movie.
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