Even if you aren’t a fan of the book phenomenon that is Fifty Shades of Grey, you have perhaps heard about the brouhaha surrounding last week’s announcement of the casting of the future movie. Apparently fans of the book are so upset at the prospect of actors Charlie Hunnam and Dakota Johnson taking on the roles of Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele (respectively, of course), they are actually trying to force a change via online petitions. Rather, they’d envision Matthew Bomer and Alexis Bledel as the perfect Christian and Ana, despite the fact that neither of these two actors appears to be interested in participating in this particular book-to-film adaptation.
While I try hard not to judge anyone’s passion, I simply cannot understand what seems to me to be a rather extreme reaction to a movie about fictional people. Instead of rending garments and ranting in cyberspace about how Hollywood is obviously determined to destroy something sacred and beloved, I advocate a wait-and-see approach.
Because, after all, it’s happened before.
It was only a few short years ago that the interwebs buzzed with vitriol over the casting of one Robert Pattinson as vampire hottie Edward Cullen of Twilight fame. People were none too happy about then-relatively-unknown Kristen Stewart as their Bella Swan, but the open hostility towards R-Patz was surprising. Everything about him was wrong. His hair. His English accent. The fact that he wasn’t Henry Cavill, author Stephenie Meyer’s pick for the role. Yet look how that turned out?
And less than two years ago, we went through this with the casting of Jennifer Lawrence as The Hunger Games’ Katniss Everdeen. She didn’t have it nearly as bad as poor Josh Hutcherson when he was cast as Peeta Mellark. But once the movie arrived in theaters, people seemed to watch it without any long-lasting traumatic effects. I would even wager that now they can’t imagine anyone else in these iconic roles.
Before anyone can protest that over-the-top fan upset over what they perceive to be bad casting choices is relegated to the younger and female set, the superhero crowd currently has its collective panties in a twist over the prospect of Ben Affleck playing Batman in the future Superman sequel. Before Ben, Michael Keaton was on the receiving end of the world’s bad vibes for earning the role of Batman in the Tim Burton film of the same name. Heath Ledger won an Academy Award posthumously for his performance of the Joker in The Dark Knight, this after the internet went crazy over the prospect of a “teen heartthrob” playing one of the darkest villains in comic history.
But we readers are only human, so who can blame us for becoming verklempt when we think Hollywood is making a tragic error? Even writers have their moments of extreme doubt, and some of them are rather vocal about it. Thankfully, they seem very willing to own it when they realize they may have been mistaken.
Author Anne Rice sided with fans who decried the casting of Tom Cruise as the vampire Lestat for the movie Interview with a Vampire. However, after actually seeing the final product, Ms. Rice had so thoroughly changed her mind about Cruise that she was compelled to take out two-page newspaper ad praising his work.
“From the moment he appeared Tom was Lestat for me. He has the immense physical and moral presence; he was defiant and yet never without conscience; he was beautiful beyond description yet compelled to do cruel things. The sheer beauty of Tom was dazzling, but the polish of his acting, his flawless plunge into the Lestat persona, his ability to speak rather boldly poetic lines, and speak them with seeming ease and conviction were exhilarating and uplifting. The guy is great.” – Daily Variety, Sept. 23, 1994
In the end, don’t forget that the people chosen to star in movies are, for the most part, professional actors. Their job is to become the person they are portraying. The fact that Charlie Hunnam and Dakota Johnson are actually earning a living in Hollywood makes it seem reasonable to assume they are fairly successful at what they do. They might just surprise the heck out of all of the doubters.
I’ll admit I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other about who would be the perfect actors to play Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele. While I’m not at all familiar with Dakota Johnson, as a fan of the TV show Sons of Anarchy, I can personally vouch for Charlie Hunnam’s acting chops and his ability to smolder and seduce and generally look very attractive. To be blatantly honest, I had never even thought to see the film adaptation of the Fifty Shades books, but the casting of an actor that I know and love might actually be enticement enough to get me into the theater.
Are there any times that you think Hollywood got things very wrong and then changed your mind once you saw the finished product? Or are there times when you felt justified in saying “I told you so!”?
– Jenna Harper
I personally loved the fifty shades trilogy. While I agree the writing was laughable at times, but it was SUPPOSED to be. The whole trilogy was very entertaining. The casting of Charlie Hunnam (the most beautiful man on earth) never occured to me (I pictured James Franco) but once it was done, I could not think of a better actor for it. Sometimes you just have to let go of small things like eye color, hair color and height. You’ll see, they won’t make a hair of difference. If you don’t believe me, check out Sons of
Anarchy on Netflix from season 1 on. You will be a convert. You go Charlie!
With the Batman mention, how about the current complaints of Ben Affleck as the new Bruce Wayne?
http://www.firstshowing.net/2013/fun-reactions-to-the-ben-affleck-batman-news/
http://entertainment.time.com/2013/08/23/ben-affleck-as-batman-seven-reasons-fans-are-unhappy/
Yeah, this blows my mind. I mean, back when they announced Michael Keaton as the first Batman, I was kind of shocked because he’s generally more of a comedian. I couldn’t imagine the start of “”Mr. Mom”” as the Dark Knight. But he blew me away in “”Batman””. And I personally think Ben Affleck is a fantastic actor. We watched “”Argo”” over the summer and he was fabulous. I think he’ll have no problems becoming Batman.
As I haven’t read the books and I’m not going to watch the movie, I don’t care about one actor or another.
But I think that SoG fans are doing what many other fans had done before. There will always be protests when you cast anyone because many people have their own ideas about the characters in the book. You really don’t know if there’s a miscast until you watch the movie. I’m sure that if they had chosen Bomer, for instance, there will be other group of fans protesting.
But it happens all the time, even when you have great actors. Don’t you remember the terrible critics towards Russell Crowe because of Les Mis? Because those who had seen the musical on stage had a certain idea of how Javert was performed.
LOL! I’m sorry, but Russel Crowe was horrible as Javert. It’s darn muscial and with the few exceptions (like Anne Hathaways’s sublime performance) they cast a lot of people (Crowe, Jackman, ect) who didn’t have the vocal chops to do their parts justice. That is only my opinion but I was not a fan of the movie for this reason.
I would disagree with saying Hugh Jackman didn’t have the vocal chops for Jean Valjean – he actually is a musician. Though Russell Crowe (while I enjoyed it) wasn’t exactly the best of singers. But he tried!
I know Hugh Jackman has been in broadway musicals and is a very charismatic performer but his voice does not in any compare with a Colm Wilkerson or Gary Morris. He got the part because he is a star and that hurt the movie. That is just my opinion but I do stand by it.
As far as Russell Crowe trying that’s nice but there a myriad of struggling actors with good voices who would have been more suitable for the role. Again, just my opinion as a longtime fan of Les Mis who disappointed with some casting choices.
Here’s the difference:
Gary Morris
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4L00YZsrIM
Colm Wilkerson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsYnhVITf9E
Hugh Jackman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fkNUTOkyJA
I agree that Hugh Jackman’s vocals aren’t as good as Colm Wilkerson (though I am not a fan of Gary Morris) – his falsetto didn’t work, and he didn’t have the same range, but I would say his overall performance was good. Better than some I have seen on stage. But, as you said, that is my opinion. I liked him much better as Curly in Oklahoma! anyways.
I’m a Lee Child fan and recently the first Jack Reacher book was made into a movie. Tom Cruise was cast as Reacher which was totally ridiculous since Reacher is described as being 6’5″” and many scenes involve the overtly muscular and aggressive Reacher in a fight. The movie was bad because of Cruise and poor dialogue (not from the book) and some truly bad supporting acting. It made me mad for a while when I first heard who was cast. But for the love of God, I wasn’t signing a petition! Some FSoG fans need to go work in a soup kitchen and rethink their priorities.
One For the Money should have been the start of a very successful movie franchise instead of one bad movie. I do blame the casting (Jason O’Mara as Morelli is the sole exception for me) along with the screenwriter, director and producer. I can think of lots of movies that have been ruined by the wrong actors.
I wonder what Anne Rice thinks of Tom Cruise as Lestat now and I’ll always wonder how different that movie would have been with Daniel Day Lewis playing the lead.
I’m fine with 50 Shades because I haven’t read the books and, though I’ve only seen a few clips of Sons of Anarchy, Charlie Hunnam is sexy as hell. I would watch the movie for him. I digress, what I’m saying is I understand fans being unhappy. I would give the actors a chance before deciding they aren’t going to work and I certainly wouldn’t try to get them fired but I am sympathetic to their disappointment.
One of my all time favorite shows is Deadwood and Ian McShane was acutally David Milch’s 3rd choice for the role of Swearengen. I shudder to think how he would have screwed up that show with Ed O’Neil (Al Bundy was his first choice ::shudder::) or Powers Boothe playing the part. The right actor makes a world of difference.