Oh, the Asylum. I suppose a whole separate blogpost will be needed to cover "the little production comp
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| Subtle, eh? |
any that could," but I will try to cover their history in a few brief sentences. The Asylum started out as an indie distribution company that eventually started producing their own low budget straight-to-video features, which gradually devolved into what is now known as a "mockbuster;" an ultra cheap shoddily made rip-off of an upcoming or recent big budget Hollywood film with a DVD artwork that suspiciously resembles the poster for some major theatrical release. While working the night shift at Hollywood Video during my college days, I had to restock such Asylum masterpieces as
King of the Lost World,
Pirates of Treasure Island,
When a Killer Calls,
18 Year Old Virgin,
The Da Vinci Treasure, and last, but not least,
The Transmorphers. I will leave you to come up with your own conclusions as to which mock buster represents which Hollywood film.
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Sure, you may hate it, but the creators of this
flick are crying themselves all the way to the bank. |
Well, it seems now that the Asylum has hit an all new low and churned out their most shameless rip-off yet. As we all know,
Fifty Shades of Grey started life as an online fan-fiction of
Twilight, re-imagining
the Mormon propaganda vampire yarn as a sexually explicit personal fantasy of an S&M relationship as envisioned by a bored housewife, that is the author, E.L. James. So now that the unavoidable "film of the book" has been released and
set record box office gross records, The Asylum has to jump on board with a rip-off, using a highly unimaginative and over-used title
Bound,
which ironically brings to mind another
90s steamy cult flick. As typical for productions from Asylum, he film stars such C-list icon as
Charisma Carpenter and newcomer
Bryce Draper, along with everyone's favorite "other" Baldwin brother,
Daniel, in a pointless role as Charisma's father just shove in another name actor on the DVD cover. The film's plot follows
50 Shades blow by blow, with same basic characters going through the exact same journey, the only difference being the social status swap between the two leads. The similarities are too many too list, in fact, the plot synopsis would work well for either films; two socially different people enter a taboo S&M relationship as the male partner's behest and it serves to the female lead to eventually realize they're incompatible. Granted, it's a plot as old as Skinemax, and we already endured this melodramatic softcore porn in such
Zalman King epics as
9 1/2 Weeks and the abysmal
Wild Orchid, but I guess
Bernardo Bertolucci's
Last Tango in Paris predates all of them.
So, the question arises. Why won't E.L. James sue The Asylum for plagiarism
as so many other filmmakers have done and won? Well, that is because she is walking a thin line of plagiarism herself, seeing how her book originated as a very kinky
Twilight fan fiction.
One can even make a chart regarding which character from 50 Shades of Grey corresponds with which Twilight character.
It seems to me that E.L. James is afraid. She is afraid if she will take The Asylum to court, she will not only come off as hypocrite, but she's afraid of setting a precedent. If she sues the producers of
Bound for ripping off her work, then why can't Stephenie Meyer sue James (real name Erica Mitchell) for stealing her work? It all seems like a hilarious case of karma, but realistically speaking, James has nothing to worry about, even if she and her agent are probably miffed at such being so shamelessly ripped off. It seems strange that The Asylum would make a title so radically different from the film they ripped off, but that could be due to
The Hobbit and
The Day the Earth Stood Still fiascos. Therefore, I can't really imagine anyone mistakenly picking up a copy of
Bound, imagining it is
Fifty Shades, which is The Asylum's entire business formula. Now, I guess Charisma Carpenter fans would be interested, as would fans of softcore porn films, but most of them
loathe the E.L. James original, so they probably won't bother with a knock-off. Seems that both The Asylum and E.L. James screwed the pooch in their respective departments.
~Evgueni Mlodik
