For screenwriter Kelly Marcel, there is little gray area when it comes to her relationship with Fifty Shades of Grey.
The British scribe, 41, penned the script to the big-screen adaptation of E L James‘ raunchy first novel, but has been vocal about her dissatisfaction with the finished product. Marcel severed ties with the author and chose not to sign on for the upcoming Fifty Shades sequels, instead handing the baton to none other than James’ husband, Niall Leonard.
Marcel spoke to novelist Bret Easton Ellis on his podcast this week, detailing the tortured months she spent butting heads with James and watching director Sam Taylor-Johnson do the same.
“I very much wanted to do something different with the screenplay, and when I spoke to the studio and the producers and made that quite clear, they were very enthusiastic about that and kind of loved the things I wanted to do,” she explained. “When I delivered that script was when I realized that all of them saying, ‘Yeah, absolutely this is what we want,’ and, ‘You can write anything you like and get crazy and artistic with it’ — that was utter, utter bulls–t.”
“My heart really was broken by that process, I really mean it,” Marcel continued. “I don’t see it out of any kind of bitterness or anger or anything like that. I just don’t feel like I can watch it without feeling some pain about how different it is to what I initially wrote.”
The drama only continued for James and her team on Wednesday, June 10, when her latest project got caught up in its own antics. The writer, 52, revealed last week that another Fifty Shades book called Grey is in the works from male lead Christian Grey’s perspective.
The book was scheduled to hit stores next week, but, according to the BBC, one desperate reader may already have possession of the juicy novel. BBC reported on Wednesday that a manuscript of Grey was stolen from Random House earlier this week and quoted a Kent Police rep as saying a police investigation is underway. James has yet to comment on the alleged robbery.
