$500M buys a lot of whips and feather ticklers, but Fifty Shades of Grey's success came with even more headaches for all involved. Stars Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan couldn't stand one another; author EL James stuck her nose into everything and poor Sam Taylor-Johnson had to put up with all of it. In fact, she won't even bother sticking around for sequels Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, and if the studios want their two stars back they'll have to pony up some extra cash.
Dornan and Johnson are asking for a huge salary bump to finish the trilogy, something closer to what the Twilight cast and The Hunger Games' Jennifer Lawrence got for their franchise sequels. That brings the number close to $10M, a big hike from the $250K (plus a bonus for the final box office) they received for the first film. They may want to consider the different circumstances in both of those cases, though. Lawrence pretty quickly won an Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook and became a superstar, warranting that kind of salary. And the Twilight stars brought in a much younger, money-spending crowd for movies that weren't limited by an R-rating. Let's not forget that Fifty Shades of Grey plummeted 73% in its second week, and the chances of the sequels under-performing is significant.
So we'll see what happens here, but I expect Johnson and Dornan will get a bump in pay that won't quite be what they're hoping for. For now, the priority is finding a new director and screenwriter, that is unless James just writes the thing herself.
