’50 Shades of Grey’ Release Officially Set for 2014

A while ago, we had a hard time believing that a '50 Shades of Grey' movie could actually get made. Then the film adaptation of the extremely popular, semi-pornographic book series got a director, and now it has a release date.

Focus Features announced today that Sam Taylor-Johnson's adaptation of the E.L. James novel will arrive in theaters on August 1, 2014 ... because nothing is better for a late-summer afternoon at the movies than a whole lot of BDSM based around 'Twilight' fan-fiction.

And that's most of the news that's fit to print, really. After all, there's not too much more to know. In addition to the director and release date, the film has a screenplay by Kelly Marcel, but no actors are attached to the project quite yet. Considering the nature of the story, a lot of big names are probably going to steer clear, but big names won't be completely necessary if all of the book fans come out for the film. After all, they didn't cast 'Twilight' with stars -- the film essentially made its lead actors into stars.

Until we learn more about the angle Taylor-Johnson intends to take or who she intends to cast, all we have is a bottomless pit of snark and bad jokes. We certainly hope they can make interesting movies out of these books, but at this point, we're not sure how that's even remotely possible.