‘Fifty Shades’ casting prompts fan protest
“Saturday Night Live” alumnus Will Forte stops off at the Cinefamily Theatre in Los Angeles as he promotes his new movie, “Nebraska,” with with Bruce Dern.
(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)Hugh Hefner, who founded Playboy in 1953 and turned it into a multimedia empire, remains the magazine’s editor in chief.
(Liz O. Baylen/Los Angeles Times)Actor Vin Diesel is the producer and star of the sci-fi thriller “Riddick.”
(Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)Director Guillermo del Toro, in the mixing studio at Warner Bros. in Burbank, has a new movie coming out called “Pacific Rim,” a shot of which is on in the background, about an alien attack threatening the Earth’s existence. Giant robots piloted by humans are deployed to fight off the menace.
(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)When the developers of Change.org began their petition-generating website, was their intended target Hollywood?
The website, which counts Amnesty International and the Humane Society as its higher-profile customers, has seen its users in the last two weeks protest Hollywood’s casting decisions with great force.
First, close to 3,000 people disputed Warner Bros. executives’ decision to hire Ben Affleck as the new Batman for the upcoming “Man of Steel” sequel.
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Now, users are back to protest the casting of Charlie Hunnam (“Sons of Anarchy”) and Dakota Johnson (“Ben and Kate”) as the leads in the upcoming adaptation of E.L. James’ worldwide bestselling novel “Fifty Shades of Grey.”
In less than 24 hours, more than 10,000 users have signed a petition that argues that actors Matthew Bomer and Alexis Bledel are better suited for the roles than the two the studio has hired.
There is little chance that these signatures will alter any casting decisions on the project, which is set to begin filming this fall, with a release date set for Aug. 1, 2014.
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Hunnam’s and Johnson’s deals are already set but Bomer and Bledel never engaged in any real discussions for the roles. And they aren’t going to start now. Bomer has been hard at work on his USA series “White Collar,” while Bledel was unavailable for the part due to her role in the upcoming Fox TV series “Us and Them.”
Fans will have more luck protesting with their wallets when the film comes out next summer, but by then Universal Pictures will have unleashed its full marketing forces on the film, to be directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson. And that will surely be harder to resist.
ALSO:
Dakota Johnson to star in ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’
‘Fifty Shades’: British director’s past primes her for new gig
‘Fifty Shades of Grey’: Charlie Hunnam to play Christian Grey
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