Teh One Who Knocks
02-18-2015, 12:04 PM
By Reed Tucker - NY Post
http://i.imgur.com/6WEWnMRl.jpg
“Fifty Shades of Grey” happily smacked audiences into submission over the weekend, ringing up $95 million at the box office from bad little girls (and a few boys). The tally marked it as the biggest Presidents Day weekend opening ever.
But there’s one way the film might have made even more money. It should have had the guts to be NC-17.
If ever there was a book adaptation that got down on its hands and knees, hands tied behind its back and begged for the adults-only treatment, it was “Fifty Shades of Grey.” Instead, the filmmakers shouted their safe word, releasing the film with a ho-hum R attached. Wusses.
The lack of explicit scenes is one of the (many, many) knocks on the movie. Many critics left the theater wondering if that’s all there was. And viewers, too — especially fans of the book — no doubt felt the same.
So why not give everyone what they seem to want in the first place?
During the film’s production, screenwriter Kelly Marcel confidently announced that the adaptation would be “raunchy.”
“We are 100 percent going there,” she told London’s Sunday Times. “It will be rated NC-17.”
Um, yeah. Maybe someone in the end decided they were only 40 percent going there.
“You want to appeal to as wide an audience as possible without grossing them out,” star Jamie Dornan told UK’s the Guardian. “You don’t want to make something gratuitous, ugly and graphic.”
Yes. You. Do.
Is he kidding right now? Imagine how much more buzz the film would have had with an NC-17 rating. Imagine how much more curiosity the rating would have stoked.
It’s not like fans of the book would have been turned off by graphic nudity. Why does Dornan think they read the book in the first place — for the beautiful prose?
Conventional wisdom has always held that an NC-17 rating is non-starter and will do massive harm to a movie at the box office. This may be true for a little-known French art film, which didn’t have much chance of succeeding anyway.
But “Fifty Shades” already has a massive built-in audience. These people were going to flock to see it, no matter what the rating.
Others claim that certain theaters won’t carry NC-17 movies. Also not true. They will show any movie that will make them money.
In a survey of cinema owners a few years ago, 97 percent said they’d host an NC-17 flick if it had commercial appeal. To this point, very few NC-17s have had commercial appeal, but “Fifty Shades” could have changed all that, making the rating finally acceptable to the mainstream.
Why even have NC-17 if no one is every going to use it?
And what’s the different between R and NC-17 anyway? With NC-17, no one under 17 is admitted. Period. With an R rating, those under 17 can be admitted when accompanied by a parent.
So in the end, the only tickets sales the movie would be losing with an NC-17 rating would be parents accompanying their under-17 children. That might be good for six tickets.
Meanwhile, we’ll never know how much the NC-17 would have been good for. With two more sequels reportedly on the way, let’s hope the filmmakers have the guts to really go for it next time.
http://i.imgur.com/6WEWnMRl.jpg
“Fifty Shades of Grey” happily smacked audiences into submission over the weekend, ringing up $95 million at the box office from bad little girls (and a few boys). The tally marked it as the biggest Presidents Day weekend opening ever.
But there’s one way the film might have made even more money. It should have had the guts to be NC-17.
If ever there was a book adaptation that got down on its hands and knees, hands tied behind its back and begged for the adults-only treatment, it was “Fifty Shades of Grey.” Instead, the filmmakers shouted their safe word, releasing the film with a ho-hum R attached. Wusses.
The lack of explicit scenes is one of the (many, many) knocks on the movie. Many critics left the theater wondering if that’s all there was. And viewers, too — especially fans of the book — no doubt felt the same.
So why not give everyone what they seem to want in the first place?
During the film’s production, screenwriter Kelly Marcel confidently announced that the adaptation would be “raunchy.”
“We are 100 percent going there,” she told London’s Sunday Times. “It will be rated NC-17.”
Um, yeah. Maybe someone in the end decided they were only 40 percent going there.
“You want to appeal to as wide an audience as possible without grossing them out,” star Jamie Dornan told UK’s the Guardian. “You don’t want to make something gratuitous, ugly and graphic.”
Yes. You. Do.
Is he kidding right now? Imagine how much more buzz the film would have had with an NC-17 rating. Imagine how much more curiosity the rating would have stoked.
It’s not like fans of the book would have been turned off by graphic nudity. Why does Dornan think they read the book in the first place — for the beautiful prose?
Conventional wisdom has always held that an NC-17 rating is non-starter and will do massive harm to a movie at the box office. This may be true for a little-known French art film, which didn’t have much chance of succeeding anyway.
But “Fifty Shades” already has a massive built-in audience. These people were going to flock to see it, no matter what the rating.
Others claim that certain theaters won’t carry NC-17 movies. Also not true. They will show any movie that will make them money.
In a survey of cinema owners a few years ago, 97 percent said they’d host an NC-17 flick if it had commercial appeal. To this point, very few NC-17s have had commercial appeal, but “Fifty Shades” could have changed all that, making the rating finally acceptable to the mainstream.
Why even have NC-17 if no one is every going to use it?
And what’s the different between R and NC-17 anyway? With NC-17, no one under 17 is admitted. Period. With an R rating, those under 17 can be admitted when accompanied by a parent.
So in the end, the only tickets sales the movie would be losing with an NC-17 rating would be parents accompanying their under-17 children. That might be good for six tickets.
Meanwhile, we’ll never know how much the NC-17 would have been good for. With two more sequels reportedly on the way, let’s hope the filmmakers have the guts to really go for it next time.