Just when you thought the Fifty Shades of Grey rumor-mongering was done, Charlie Hunnam had to go and ruin everything. Hunnam had secured the lead role of Christian Grey in Sam Taylor-Johnson's adaptation of the best-selling smut novel, and with Dakota Johnson on board as Anastasia Steele all was ready to go. But just as production was about to begin in mere days, Hunnam dropped out and now it's basically back to square one. Cue the role call of candidates!
According to THR, True Blood's Alexander Skarsgard, Jamie Dornan of U.K. series The Fall, Divergent star Theo James, and Christian Cooke (Romeo and Juliet) are said to be in the mix, with producers basically going back to the original drawing board in plucking out these names. If this goes like the last round of casting went we can probably expect to see more random names pop up. Anybody throw Russell Crowe's name out there yet? Oh, yep, there it is. It's going to get ridiculous, ya'll.
Speaking of ridiculous, there are conflicting theories going around about the reason for Hunnam's departure. THR suggests the problem could be the script by Kelly Marcel, which had enough problems that Patrick Marber (Closer) was hired to give it a polish. But other sources say that's not a big deal and not the real issue. The studio talking point is that Hunnam left due to scheduling conflicts with hit FX series Sons of Anarchy, but US Magazine claims the actor never wanted to do the movie at all. A source says...
"Charlie Hunnam was never going to do Fifty Shades of Grey. He told his agents from the beginning he didn't want to do it and was going to pull out."
And yet another source tells them it was definitely a scheduling problem. The point is that the speculation is going to be running wild for a few weeks until Focus Features gets this thing locked down and in front of cameras next month. Otherwise it's going to be tough to meet the August 1st 2014 release date.
