When Fifty Shades of Grey opens in theaters next week, E.L. James will have the last word — and as it turns out, that word was quite a matter of debate between the author of the books and the movie’s director, Sam Taylor-Johnson.
James was given an unusual level of control over the movie adaptation when she sold her book rights to Universal, according to The Hollywood Reporter. So when she was unhappy with the movie’s ending as imagined by Taylor-Johnson, she demanded that one single word — albeit an important one — be changed.
Spoiler alert: the debate came down to whether the protagonist, Anastasia Steele, would ask her lover, Christian Grey, to cease a consensual beating by saying “stop,” or using their safe word, “red.” James favored the former, Taylor-Johnson the latter. While Universal did not comment to The Hollywood Reporter, fans can see for themselves whether the true-to-the-novel ending works on Feb. 14.
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