Who better to write the movie sequel for one of the most hyped, exciting books of the past few years than the better half of the original author? Nope, we're not talking J.K. Rowling here.
E.L. James, who penned the popular Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy series, says her husband, Niall Leonard, will serve as screenwriter and write the sequel to the Universal film hit — and he's got the credentials to pull it off.
The British writer's husband is the author of the Crusher book series and a screenwriter with credits for TV shows. He also apparently put his two cents into the original Fifty Shades — on the sly. The movie was a $568.8-million hit.
"Niall is an outstanding writer in his own right, with multiple established credits, and we are lucky to have him join Team Fifty," said producer Michael De Luca.
Some reports say the move to bring in the hubby may have something to do with the fact that EL (which stands for Erika Leonard) exhibited rather tight control in the adaptation of her best-selling book. She had strong creative differences with the director, Sam Taylor-Johnson, especially when it came to the ending of the first film. Taylor-Johnson hasn't disputed the creative differences during the making of the first movie.
"It was difficult, I'm not going to lie. We would have proper on-set barneys and I'm not confrontational," she acknowledged.
Neither the director, nor Kelly Marcel, who served as the first film's screenwriter, will be working on the sequel.
The Fifty Shades of Grey book trilogy sold more than 100 million copies worldwide. The author was also a producer on the film and reportedly told one media outlet that the experience involved having to "fight for a lot of things really hard."
At this point, no insight regarding production or the movie's release has been mentioned, though one report claims production is scheduled for the first quarter of 2016.
The sequel will incorporate the second and third volumes of the trilogy series, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed. Reports say the film's stars, Jamie Dornan (Christian Grey) and Dakota Johnson (Anastasia Steele), are negotiating contracts for reprising their roles.
For techie lovers of trivia, there was a rather glaring smartphone error in the Fifty Shades of Grey movie. Whereas Christian has a Blackberry in the book, he uses an iPhone 5S in the film. Anastasia has a flip phone, which means her texts should show up as green on his screen — but instead, the text bubbles are blue, which only happens iPhone-to-iPhone.
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