Let’s play a fun numbers game! Fifty Shades of Grey made $81.7 million on its opening weekend, which according to a 2010 census is almost the exact population of Germany. You could buy a Kinder chocolate bar for every single person living in Germany and probably still have a bunch left over. In fact, we should just do that.
The domestic-abuse-narrative-turned-softcore-BDSM-romance is set to make $90.7 million in total over the four day weekend, which also happens to be the most money that’s ever been made over Valentine’s Day—the previous record, held by (what else) Valentine’s Day, came in at about $56.3 million. It’s also the second biggest two-day February release in cinema history, just behind The Passion of The Christ at $83 million. Hmm, I’m seeing an odd, violent pattern here… although, unlike Mel Gibson’s Jesus torture film, the opening weekend audience for Fifty Shades was almost 70% women.
Speaking of women, there is at least a glimpse of a silver lining here for those of us who vainly hoped the movie would crash and burn: Fifty Shades now has the biggest grossing opening weekend ever for a movie directed by a woman, beating out the $69.6 million that Catherine Hardwicke’s Twilight made in November 2008. Why just the first Twilight movie? Because the franchise was then turned over to a bunch of male directors, which we hope doesn’t happen this time around. Say what you want about this franchise, but if it’s being marketed heavily to women, at the very least it should be directed by one, right?
(via The Hollywood Reporter and Variety)
Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?
