“Fifty Shades of Grey” Drive-In Screening Sparks Controversy - East Idaho News
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“Fifty Shades of Grey” Drive-In Screening Sparks Controversy

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021715 50Shades?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1424211250015Focus Features(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — The big-screen debut of Fifty Shades of Grey set box office records this weekend — but if one California movie theater is the example, many more people may have seen the movie than actually paid for it.

A Sacramento drive-in movie theater playing the film, based on the erotic novel by E.L. James, just happens to be right next to a local highway, meaning some drivers are seeing the movie, whether they want to or not.

“If you have kids and you’re just driving by and there’s traffic, they see that,” Rikki Brown, a customer who paid to see the movie, told local ABC affiliate KXTV-TV.

The movie theater, West Wind Sacramento 6 Drive-In, is also playing more family-friendly fare like the new SpongeBob movie, Sponge Out of Water.

“We brought kids to see the SpongeBob movie last night and were surprised/dismayed to find 50 Shades on the screen by the drive way entrance where we sat for at least fifteen windows yelling at the kids ‘Don’t look out that window!!’” one customer wrote on the theater’s Facebook page. “It was an ordeal.”

Fifty Shades of Grey
earned an estimated $81.7 million from Friday to Sunday, setting records for a Presidents’ Day weekend and a Valentine’s Day weekend. It was also the second-best debut ever for the month of February, trailing only The Passion of the Christ, which opened in 2004 with $83.9 million.

The film follows the steamy romance between Anastasia Steele, played by Dakota Johnson, and 27-year-old billionaire Christian Grey, played by Jamie Dornan.

ABC News did not hear back from West Wind management.


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