Fifty Shades of Grey author E L James is about to drop her first novel since the blockbuster S&M-light franchise: The Mister, a contemporary romance set in London, Cornwall, and Eastern Europe, will be published worldwide on April 16. The novel arrives via Vintage Books, the Penguin Random House imprint that launched…

During a recent conversation promoting his awards season contender, A Private War, Jamie Dornan talked about the importance of being timely, especially with this pertinent story (the first narrative film from documentarian Matthew Heineman) of journalists on the front lines of reporting and photographing major…

Universal Pictures’ climactic third installment of the Fifty Shades franchise has thrust past the $300M worldwide mark. Through Friday, Fifty Shades Freed has liberated $306.7M global and $217.4M at the international box office. This comes after the James Foley-directed movie opened to $135.3M global in the frame…

6TH WRITETHRU, Monday 6:30 PM: Even though Warner Bros.’ The Lego Batman Movie’s opening is still fine at $53M, it’s down from its Sunday projection by $2.6M, which some attribute to the fact that the movie isn’t resonating as broadly as The Lego Movie did, rather largely appealing to the under-12 set. Some industry…

Almost two months to the day before its February 10 debut, advance ticket sales have started and a new trailer has arrived for Universal’s Fifty Shades Darker, the sequel to E L James’ Fifty Shades of Grey. That movie swooned Valentine’s Day audiences last year with an $85 million opening weekend before Deadpool broke…

50 Shades Of Grey star Dakota Johnson is joining Andrew Garfield in David Robert Mitchell’s Under The Silver Lake, a modern noir crime thriller set in Los Angeles that Mitchell is writing and directing. A24 has acquired domestic rights to the the pic here in Cannes. The project will be Mitchell’s follow-up to his…

When it comes to evaluating the financial performance of top movies, it isn't about what a film grosses at the box office. The true tale is told when production budgets, P&A, talent participations and other costs collide with box office grosses and ancillary revenues from VOD to DVD and TV. To get close to that mysteri…

A number of projects and players tied to the film and TV worlds scored Grammy Awards this afternoon during the preshow ceremony. Canadian singer The Weeknd scored a Best R&B Performance statuette for “Earned It,” his song from Fifty Shades Of Grey that hit the Top 5 in the U.S. and UK. The song lost in a pair of other…

EXCLUSIVE: Bella Heathcote has been set to join the cast of Fifty Shades Darker, the second installment of the trilogy based on E L James' worldwide bestselling Fifty Shades Of Grey book series. Heathcote, who starred in Dark Shadows, opens today in Pride And Prejudice And Zombies. James Foley is directing both Fifty S…

Sam Taylor-Johnson is in talks to helm the Apex Entertainment feature Chappaquiddick, about the 1969 Ted Kennedy scandal. She has been available after declining to come back to the sequels after directing the smash adaptation of the EL James novel Fifty Shades Of Grey. Written by Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan, Chappaqu…

At some point after Nevermind became a hit, the members of Nirvana said that they knew they’d made it after Weird Al recorded a parody of one of their songs. Congratulations, softcore porn: Your moment has arrived. This is the trailer for Fifty Shades of Black, a parody (obviously) of Fifty Shades of Grey starring Marl…

EXCLUSIVE: James Foley has emerged as the clear frontrunner to direct Fifty Shades Darker, the sequel to Universal’s saucy blockbuster. There is speculation that he might well direct Fifty Shades Freed, the third installment of the E.L. James novel trilogy, but that is still yet to be worked out on whether the studio…