LOS ANGELES -- Domination dominated the headlines, but there were plenty of whippings, spankings, ropings-in, cuffings, seductions and even an explosion, too. All in all, it was a pretty racy weekend for journalists who write about movies.
The weekly ritual of box office reporting is the last place where the modern writer can safely submit to the temptation to make a pun, so when Fifty Shades of Grey turned out to be an outsized smash hit for Universal over the long weekend -- a February record, and the third-biggest R-rated opening of all time -- you could almost hear the editors crying out for a "safe" word or two. But you'd better believe there was no innuendo left unturned.
Fueled by a predominantly female audience (68%) that had the leverage of Valentine's Day to drag along some male companions (who, let's face it, were probably curious anyway), the film didn't just launch a Twilight-sized franchise for Universal. It also inspired a dizzying flurry of similar headlines, leads and number-crunching.
“Fifty Shades of Grey made moviegoers its slave over Presidents Day weekend, shattering records and heating up the box office with a staggering $94.4 million debut over the four-day holiday," wrote Hollywood trade magazine Variety, which pioneered box-office reporting in the 1980s -- and with it, the perpetual punnery.
As you're about to see, the rest of the writers were handcuffed to this theme, too.
Some toned it down... a bit
Maybe they're catering to the family audience. Maybe they just get the vapors easily.
Whatever the reason, Slate and Deadline (in its Sunday update) chose pretty PG language to sell their stories:
Who needs a spanking?
Hitfix just came right out with it:
For fans of the book only
The Telegraph, that bastion of subtlety, decided that fans of E. L. James' novel should have a special headline all to themselves:
Whip-smart
It became clear on Thursday night that Fifty Shades was going to be a hit, and without regard for what to write in the coming days, "whips up" was the favorite choice for the early barrage of headlines, from Forbes to the BBC to The Associated Press.
Utter 'Domination'
But there was nothing like the domination of "Dominates."
The last thing you want is to write what everyone else writes. In an attempt to come up with something clever but a little off-the-nose, you start spitballing key words and see how they might fit the narrative, and when one pops to mind, you think, "Ha!. There's no way the other guys are coming up with this!"
And then this happens:
And yeah. We did it, too:
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BONUS: Moms review '50 Shades of Grey'