Charlie Hunnam in 'Sons of Anarchy'.
Universal and author E.L. James chose Labor Day to make a major casting announcement about the upcoming Fifty Shades of Grey movie adaptation. Charlie Hunnam, best known for the FX TV show Sons of Anarchy, will play Christian Grey, the sexy older man in the trilogy.
It’s a huge coup for Hunnam who has been acting for a long time but has yet to land a role that will catapult him to the lever of A-list movie star. Grey could finally be that role.
Madonna Tops Forbes 2013 List Of The Top-Earning Celebrities Dorothy Pomerantz Dorothy Pomerantz Forbes Staff
'The Mortal Instruments' Is Not The Next 'Hunger Games.' So What Is? Dorothy Pomerantz Dorothy Pomerantz Forbes Staff
'Pacific Rim' And More Domestic "Flops" That Became Global Hits Scott Mendelson Scott Mendelson Contributor
The 33-year-old British actor got his big American break in the TV show Undeclared. Judd Apatow’s follow up to Freaks and Geeks wasn’t a star-making hit like his first TV show which gave us Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jason Segel and Linda Cardellini. The show didn’t even run its entire first season.
Hunnam had small roles in movies like Cold Mountain and Children of Men but it wasn’t until 2008 that he landed a big role on Sons of Anarchy as Jackson ‘Jax’ Teller. The show initially struggled in the ratings but now it often beats broadcast shows.
But Sons of Anarchy isn’t the same as a big movie. Hunnam’s agents likely thought that the star’s gravy train had finally arrived when he was cast in this summer’s Pacific Rim. Although he likely wasn’t paid much to appear in the movie, there were high hopes that it would launch a franchise which would have meant big bucks for the sequel.
Unfortunately for Hunnam, Pacifc Rim has struggled at the box office. The film is doing better abroad. It’s earned 75% of its $405 million box office take outside of the U.S. But that performance is unlikely to spawn a sequel.
Hunnam has a better chance of becoming a franchise star with Fifty Shades of Grey. James has sold more than 70 million copies of her books. We recently ranked her as one of the top-earning celebrities with an estimated $95 million brought in between June 2012 and June 2013.
If Unversal can harness that fan enthusiasm, the movie should be a hit. With director Sam Taylor-Johnson and stars Hunnam and Dakota Johnson (daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson) Universal is clearly keeping the budget low. And although the millions of women who read the book will likely flock to movie theaters, the film is sure to have an R rating which is always a box office challenge. The movie likely won’t attract teen boys or young girls who can boost the box office of a film like Twilight or The Hunger Games.
So although the movies will likely give Hunnam a serious career boost, they won’t make him the next Robert Pattinson. Unless the first film is a runaway hit, Universal will likely be loath to boost future budgets too much to ensure that the films turn some serious profit. That means that they will do all they can to avoid paying Hunnam that massive amounts of money Pattinson was earning by the end of the Twilight series.
But it could set Hunnam up star in bigger, better paying movies down the line. The movie is scheduled to hit theaters next August.
As written by
Dorothy Pomerantz, Forbes Staff
