Fifty Shades of Grey (film) James' husband, Niall Leonard, was enlisted to write the script for the film's sequel. In the same month, at the 2015 Universal CinemaCon in Las Vegas, Universal announced the release dates of the sequels, with "Fifty Shades Darker" being released on February 10, 2017, and "Fifty Shades Freed" was released on February 9, 2018. However, the sequels did not see Sam Taylor-Johnson returning as director. On August 20, 2015, the U.S. "House of Cards" director James Foley was a frontrunner to direct the sequel. In November 2015, Universal Studios announced that both films will be shot back-to-back. A spoof version
Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian negative and many critics have criticized it for being too similar to "Fifty Shades of Grey". The "Daily Mail's" reviewer commented that "Ms James has simply shadowed the whole plot of Book One, reproducing the clunky polystyrene dialogue word for word, and inserting italicised thoughts by Christian himself." "The Independent" criticized the book and the choice to include Grey's internal monologues, stating that he had a "vacuous mental life" and that "The effect is increasingly comical – Mills & Boon meets "Peep Show" – while the rest of his internal monologue is spent stating the bleeding obvious." "The Telegraph" wrote