adapting the book, which is the first in a trilogy, has fallen to screenwriter Kelly Marcel, (Saving Mr Banks), who was apparently hand chosen by James herself. The director is artist turned filmmaker Sam Taylor-Johnson, who gave us the stylish John Lennon biopic Nowhere Man. The pair have toned down many of the more explicit and controversial elements of the source material to make it more palatable for audiences.

The film’s producers have also tried to make the film less sexually explicit to ensure a lesser rating than an NC-17, which in the US is usually the kiss of death for a mainstream film as many cinema chains would refuse to screen it. That means that a lot of the more explicit sex has gone, making Fifty Shades OfScientists in Britain are ready to genetically modify human embryos for the first time as part of a research effort to shed light on the root causes of recurrent miscarriages.

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute in London could receive approval for the controversial work as early as Thursday when the government’s fertility watchdog meets to consider the proposal.



If the regulator grants a research licence, the UK team stands to become only the second in the world to modify genes in human embryos. All of the embryos used in the work will be donated with consent by couples who have a surplus after IVF treatment.



Kathy Niakan and her team want to use a powerful new procedure called gene editing to disable certain genes in early stage human embryos. The