Rights holders Universal Pictures and Focus Features made the announcement n Monday (9).

Focus will market and distribute the film in association with Universal after the Comcast-owned siblings prevailed in a fierce bidding war in March.

E L James’ Fifty Shades Of Grey charts the relationship between a college student and a billionaire in his late twenties. The book began life as an online episodic before it was published as a single volume by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, with whom Focus has a relationship.

The two follow-ups Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed explore the couple’s evolving union.

Vintage has sold 31m e-book and print copies of the trilogy in English-language markets and US sales of the trilogy have topped 20m.

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