On pure maths alone, there was absolutely no way there wouldn't be a sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey.
When you consider that the film was made for just $40 million and it came back with $570 million, the mechanics of the situation were such that it would have been stupid not to.
Sure enough, here we are with EL James' two sequels, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, now headed into production.
The on-set disputes between EL James - who was given an unprecedented amount of creative control - and director Sam Taylor-Johnson is well known. So much so, in fact, that Taylor-Johnson said she was done with the series once Fifty Shades of Grey was released.
Thankfully, a replacement has been found in James Foley, who previously directed most of Netflix's House of Cards and Fear. You don't remember Fear? Fear was that teenage romantic thriller with Mark Wahlberg, Reese Witherspoon and Alyssa Milano where Wahlberg plays this psychopath who becomes obsessed with Witherspoon.
He ends up getting her name tattooed on his chest and he tried to kill her dad, CSI's William Petersen. It's basically Fatal Attraction with teenage Mark Wahlberg. It's amazing. And awful.
So the guy that directed that is doing Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed. Of course he is.
There's more. The two films are being filmed back-to-back so that Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson can move on with their lives and forget all about EL James and her awful writing. However, we'll have to sit, tied up with a ball-gag in our mouth, until February 10, 2017 for Darker and February 9, 2018 for Freed.
Can't wait. No, really, we can't wait.
