All three Fifty Shades films landed on Netflix this week, giving subscribers a chance to binge one of the steamiest R-rated franchises of the 2010s in one sitting.
Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), Fifty Shades Darker (2017), and Fifty Shades Freed (2018) star Dakota Johnson as Anastasia Steele, a college student whose life takes a sharp turn after interviewing billionaire Christian Grey, played by Jamie Dornan. What begins as a simple assignment for her campus newspaper quickly spirals into a complicated relationship involving luxury, control, and a very specific contract that raised more than a few eyebrows when the films first hit theaters.
Adapted from E.L. James’ bestselling novels, which famously began as Twilight fan fiction before becoming a global publishing phenomenon, the Fifty Shades books have sold more than 150 million copies worldwide and been translated into dozens of languages, according to the Los Angeles Times. On the big screen, the numbers were just as staggering. Across three films, the franchise pulled in a combined $1.32 billion at the worldwide box office.
Content-wise, the trilogy carried an R rating for its explicit themes. The first film was flagged for “strong sexual content,” “some unusual behavior,” and “graphic nudity,” while the sequels kept the R rating for strong erotic content, nudity, and language.
And Dornan didn’t exactly go into the role blind. In a 2015 interview with British GQ, the actor said he visited real sex dungeons while preparing for the role — though the experience wasn’t exactly glamorous. “I can tell you from an alarmingly first-hand perspective it’s not altogether sexy,” he said. Dornan also defended the BDSM community in the same interview, joking that he actually finds plane spotting “far weirder” than S&M. “I can understand why people are into S&M,” he said. “But standing outside Heathrow Terminal 5 waiting for Ryanair to come in?”
Johnson, meanwhile, had her own method. At the Los Angeles premiere of Fifty Shades Darker, she told Entertainment Tonight their pre-shoot ritual was simple: “Shot of whiskey [and] mints… He does pushups and I just lay there and drink whiskey.”