The controversial role of Christian Grey in the movie adaptation of EL James’ Fifty Shades Of Grey is now vacant as lead actor Charlie Hunnam pulls out.
The two studios producing the highly anticipated film of the book, often referred to as mummy porn, announced on Saturday that the actor had to withdraw due to TV commitments.
“The filmmakers of Fifty Shades Of Grey and Charlie Hunnam have agreed to find another male lead, given Hunnam’s immersive TV schedule, which is not allowing him time to adequately prepare for the role of Christian Grey,” they said.
However according to fresh sources, TV commitments were not the reason for Hunnam’s change of heart, rather a fear of being typecast.
“He dropped out of the project because he didn’t want to be typecast,” an unknown source told People.
“He didn’t want the Robert Pattinson-esque attention that would come along with taking on this role.”
The Sons Of Anarchy actor’s original casting as the sexy, wealthy and highly sexual Christian Grey was met with much fan backlash, with twitter pages exploding seconds after the announcement with fans declaring him unfit to play the leading role.
While Fifty Shaders are now hitting up Twitter once again, this time to celebrate the star’s withdrawal, it’s left the film in chaos trying to quickly recast the open position.
The film was scheduled to be released on August 1, 2014, but with no leading man locked in there are doubts it will make its looming release date.
In the meantime, while producers scramble to fill the role, it remains to be seen if they can find a suitable actor to please the book’s vocal fans.
