{"id":31223,"date":"2025-08-21T17:31:29","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T21:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=31223"},"modified":"2025-08-21T21:55:49","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T01:55:49","slug":"gus-van-sant-reveals-he-wanted-to-direct-fifty-shades-of-grey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=31223","title":{"rendered":"Gus Van Sant Reveals He Wanted to Direct &#8216;Fifty Shades of Grey&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>Photo by Georges Biard<\/p>\r\n<p>Filmmaker <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0001814\/\">Gus Van Sant<\/a> has revealed that, a decade ago, he campaigned to direct <em><strong>Fifty Shades of Grey<\/strong><\/em>, an erotic drama that was based on a book by E. L. James. Van Sant said that he sent James a sample clip he shot in which actor Alex Pettyfer portrayed Christian Grey, but James was not convinced. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0853374\/\">Sam Taylor-Johnson<\/a> eventually ended up as the director of the award-winning film, which starred Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson.\u00a0<br \/><br \/>\u201cIt did not fit into her idea of what she wanted to do,\u201d Van Sant said. \u201cIt\u2019s a complete sex novel, but the author had this intention of not having a lot of sex in it. She wanted a movie that was a lot more chaste than the novel.\u201d<br \/><br \/>However, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2025\/film\/news\/gus-van-sant-odead-mans-wire-fifty-shades-of-grey-brokeback-mountain-1236494808\/\"><em>Variety<\/em>,<\/a> a spokesperson for E. L. James disputed Van Sant\u2019s assertion that the author \u201cwanted the movie to have less sex than the books.\u201d<br \/><br \/>Van Sant at one point was attached to direct <em><strong>Brokeback Mountain<\/strong><\/em> and <strong>C<em>all Me By Your Name<\/em>, <\/strong>but neither project materialized for him He directed two Oscar-winning films, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0119217\/\"><em><strong>Good Will Hunting<\/strong> <\/em><\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1013753\/\"><em><strong>Milk<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, for which he received nominations for best director. His next film, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt15181326\/\"><em><strong>Dead Man\u2019s Wire<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, will be released next month, his first movie since 2018. It stars Dacre Montgomery and Bill Skarsg\u00e5rd in a dramatization of a real-life high-profile 1977 kidnapplng.<\/p>\r\n<p><em><strong>Dead Man\u2019s Wire<\/strong> <\/em>will premiere out of competition at the Venice Film Festival on September 2. An indie production, the film cost only $15 million to make. Van Sant bemoans the fact that \u201cStudios are only really interested in huge tentpole movies that are designed to make a lot of money \u2014 they\u2019ve sort of taken over the industry,\u201d he says.<\/p>\r\n<p>Most recently, Van Sant directed the 2024 FX series <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/news\/ni64352561\/\"><em>Feud: Capote vs. the Swans<\/em><\/a> as well as a collection of short films for Gucci.<br \/><br \/>\u201cI didn\u2019t realize how much I missed [feature filmmaking] until I got to set and started working on this,\u201d he was quoted as saying. \u201cIt\u2019s just a different game. It\u2019s for a different audience, and it\u2019s a different business.&#8221;<\/p>\r\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/author\/edward-moran\/\">Check out other articles by Edward.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo by Georges Biard Filmmaker Gus Van Sant has revealed that, a decade ago, he campaigned to direct Fifty Shades of Grey, an erotic drama that was based on a book by E. L. James. Van Sant said that he sent James a sample clip he shot in which actor Alex Pettyfer portrayed Christian Grey,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":31240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,20471],"tags":[28183,28182,28181,28180,2624,8222,7745,10489],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Gus Van Sant Reveals He Wanted to Direct &#039;Fifty Shades of Grey&#039; | Cinema Daily US<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Filmmaker Gus Van Sant has revealed that, a decade ago, he campaigned to direct Fifty Shades of Grey, an erotic drama that was based on a book by E. L. 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