This afternoon, after forever- some 18 months to be precise, it was finally announced that Dakota Johnson and Charlie Hunnam will be playing Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey, respectively, in the movie adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey. As you know us fans are passionate and protective of these two and we all had our ideal Christian and Ana so its a bit or a lot, depending on where your head’s at, of a surprise that two least thought of actors would get cast to play the lead role in what has to be the most anticipated movie of the year. Its all very WTF?!!
Dakota Johnson, 23 yrs old, daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson. She’s an actress/model and was in The Social Network I’ll have to watch that movie again for a feel (shouldn’t come as a surprise because Dana Brunetti and Micheal De Luca, who are also producing Fifty Shades of Grey produced The Social Network so they didn’t have to look far. I WISH THEY HAD) I’m very sceptical about people of the slash-slash generation because you just can’t place them…you know what I mean? There were other more superior contenders for Ana’s role, people who in my opinion would’ve given her much more gumption than she had in the book, Alexandra Daddrio was my ultimate Ana, she’s one of those you don’t see around but she’s got chops in what I’ve seen and most of all she is memorable. Dakota Johnson is a very left field choice.
Charlie Hunnam is brilliant on Sons of Anarchy but he wasn’t even on the list of possible Christian Greys for me. I just don’t think he can pull off this role because he comes with the whole Sons of Anarchy hard man-biker thing, its hard to picture him in all fifty shades of Christian Grey. You have to remember CG is prickly and unpredictable and runs cold and hot in a space of two seconds. He comes apart at the seams and puts himself together just as quickly, he’s pretty f*&Ked up and whilst on SOA Hunnam can be pretty crazy and what not, I dither on his ability to channel the emotional Christian or his twisted essence. And looks wise, he doesn’t cut it. He’s cute and all, but there is cute and there is Christian Grey Hot, Hunnam is nowhere near Grey Hot. Sorry not sorry, but oh well. It could be worse, it could’ve been R-Patz and K-Stew…don’t even. I can’t.
It was always my hopes that they would cast lesser known actors, so I guess that’s one thing we can agree on. We can’t always have what we want, can we? Who knows? I may just be eating my words come August 2014. I honestly sincerely hope I am. Now comes the test of a good script and for the director to capture and communicate the dialogue and emotions on screen. We want a raw and passionate and witty and dark and twisted and all in all, an immensely beautifully adapted screenplay…can these two pull it off? Casting comes down to a lot of things, most important chemistry between actors and I guess that’s why we have our Christian and Ana…Oh well until August of 2014. Oi Vey.
Day Three Update;
So I’ve raged and cursed and lost sleep over this and now I’m over it and warming to this casting. Several things made this decision possible for me;
1) Someone started a petition on Change.org to get Matt Bomer cast as Christian Grey. I MEAN FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS SANE!!! A PETITION FOR A MOVIE CASTING?!!! SERIOUSLY?!! I mean Syria is about to be bombed but forget that, most important thing is we have a wrong Christian Grey so lets start a movement to change that. This is stupidity at its utmost and I am not on board with that. Whoever you are, get a life, a dog, a hobby or all three.
2) The fifty shades of crazy fans out there have been up to their bullshit of sending hateful tweets to the producers and E.L. James because this was not their casting of choice. Whilst I understand that fans have been the support system of these books and they invested their time and effort to make this book what it is, this is still no reason to get all fifty shades of crazy and out of line. This is all shades of sill now. One moron even compared the casting of Hunnam to telling the world Jesus does not exist. How utterly stupid. Lest you forget; ITS JUST A MOVIE. ITS ALL FICTION. NONE OF IT IS REAL!! People please invest in some common sense it’ll do you a world of good. So your favourite wasn’t cast, I personally believe that Matt Bomer is NOT Christian Grey. 1000%. Not in a billion years even if he looks like the imagined CG, he is not. But here’s the thing, we are getting a movie out of this, after the critics have been unkind to the books we are still getting a movie and I am here for that.
So I didn’t get my Josh Hartnett as Christian and Alexandra Daddrio as Ana Steele regardless, I remain a huge fan and now believe that this movie WILL BE WONDERFUL. I don’t believe that Dana Brunetti or E.L James or Micheal De Luca want this movie to fail and I am hedging my bets with them. I may even go to Seattle to watch it, have me some Fifty Shades experience and what not. So here’s to Hunnam and Johnson, knock it out of the park guys.