When I posted the story earlier today about Kelly Marcel being hired to write Universal’s upcoming adaptation of “Fifty Shades Of Grey,” the last thing I imagined would be that Marcel would end up as the controversial part of the story.
Within a half-hour, though, some woman on Twitter was happy to tell me why I am wrong about Marcel as a writer to the point where she eventually started calling me names because I dared to like Marcel’s work, and no less than Bret Easton Ellis weighed in on his Twitter feed, which has proven to be reliably insane ever since he signed on. He was obsessed with “Fifty Shades Of Grey,” and he basically used Twitter to pitch his approach to the adaptation for what seemed like months on end. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised, then, that he is outraged and infuriated that he is not the man doing the job. Here’s what he had to say.
“Kelly Marcel?!? KELLY MARCEL?!? Kelly Marcel is WRITING the script for ‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’?!? THIS is the movie they want to make? ARGH.”
He followed that about ten minutes later with this one:
“Kelly Marcel: the creator of (gulp) ‘Terra Nova’ and a Mary Poppins bio-pic has been blessed by EL James and no one can stop her. Dear God.”
First, I’d like to point out that it is incredibly poor form for any writer to crap all over another writer when they got the job that you wanted. Ellis doesn’t seem to understand even the basics of professional decorum, though. His tantrum would maybe carry a bit more weight if he had not also just posted the first trailer for “The Canyons,” the movie that he wrote for Paul Schrader to direct with Lindsay Lohan and James Deen starring.
The saddest part of the entire trailer has to be the moment where it says “From the creators of ‘Hardcore’ and ‘American Psycho.'” While that is accurate, the trailer surrounding that sentence makes it look like we’re a long way from the heyday of either artist. Porn star James Deen is, if you believe the breathless profile pieces that have been written about him, ready for his mainstream moment, and it’s funny that he’s not the reason the casting looks sleazy. Using Lohan right now can only be seen as an act of near-total desperation. She has pissed away any talent she ever had, and whether she is still walking around or not, she has absolutely become a cautionary tale instead of a working actor.
The trailer is all attitude, and it looks ridiculous. The faux-grindhouse thing requires a deft touch and a real love of this type of material, and this trailer looks like it’s trying to be both serious and tongue in cheek at the same time. I think if I were the writer of the film being advertised by this trailer on this particular day, I would keep my criticisms of other writers and filmmakers to myself:
So there it is… the comeback Lindsay Lohan still believes she’s going to stage. If Twitter has taught me nothing so far this year, it has taught me that when I want an informed and insightful discourse on film, Bret Easton Ellis is one of the last places I would turn. His sour grapes routine is just the icing on the cake.
There’s no firm release date yet, but I’m sure “The Canyons” will set the world on fire as soon as it’s released.