Universal has a lock on this market for the next few years thanks to the two sequels to Fifty Shades from author E.L. Today executives are no doubt screaming at their development worker bees to find the next Fifty Shades. It will be almost impossible to find a similarly successful book to base future films on but there are plenty of Fifty Shades clones with unsubtle names from best-selling authors like Tame Me, Taking It All and Bared To You. While I would like to hope that the lesson Hollywood takes away from the film is that female directors making movies aimed almost squarely at women can make boatloads of money, it's more likely that other studios will just look to replicate the Fifty Shades template of an inexpensive soft-core film hitting theaters in February. This year's annual Nicholas Sparks film, The Longest Ride, will hit theaters in April instead of February this year. Fifty Shades of Grey changed the equation before it even hit theaters.
Films like The Vow and Safe Haven were the go-to February romance films. For years the most successful Valentine's Day movies have been based on Nicholas Sparks books.
