Dakota Johnson told to add ‘men with muscles’ to female-led TV show

Dakota Johnson shared her disbelief over what Hollywood producers had told her (Picture: Getty)

Actress Dakota Johnson revealed she was told by Hollywood studios to make a TV show she was pitching ‘more muscular’.

The 35-year-old Fifty Shades of Grey star co-founded TeaTime Pictures with former Netflix executive Ro Donnelly in 2019, producing projects including 2023’s Daddio with Sean Penn and her upcoming relationships comedy, Splitsville.

Now, the actress has shared her frustration at how the industry works, recalling baffling feedback she received for a female-led TV show.

‘I do find myself constantly fighting to tell true stories and portray real women on screen. It’s not what studios are wanting to do right now,’ Johnson told Metro at a roundtable on Tuesday at the Cannes Film Festival.

Referencing a TV project that TeaTime is developing, she continued: ‘While we were figuring out who we were going to make it with, we kept hearing that they wanted more ‘muscular’ shows.

‘And I was like, “What the f**k does that mean?”. And what it really meant was, men with muscles. And I was like, “Wait, but what about this show about a really, really smart woman?”‘

She was baffled by execs saying her TV show needed to be ‘more muscular’ (Picture: Getty) With Splitsville co-writers Kyle Marvin and Michael Angelo Covino and co-star Adria Arjona at Cannes Film Festival (Picture: Getty)

‘It was really, really hard and that’s ugly, and that sucks – I don’t want to watch shows about men with muscles!’ the Persuasion star added. ‘Some women might love that, and that’s great, but I want to see real portrayals of people, and that is not always what studios want to make.’

Johnson also reflected on her ‘complicated relationship’ with the movie business, which she’s been aware of from a young age as the daughter of Hollywood royalty, actors Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith.

‘I think it’s quite ugly, and I also think it’s wonderful and beautiful – it’s like a love-hate relationship. It can be really, really s****y sometimes,’ she observed, while sharing that she was ‘definitely enjoying it more’ since being a producer as well as an actor.

One of the highlights was Splitsville’s standing ovation at Cannes (reported to have lasted between six and eight minutes) and ‘a room full of people laughing because of something we made’.

The star described her relationship with Hollywood as ‘complicated’ (Picture: Arnold Jerocki/FilmMagic)

‘That’s a gift for me. Making people laugh brings me so much joy, so as a producer it is amazing to use all aspects of what I have to offer.’

Johnson, who will also star in upcoming rom-com Materialists, recently explained that she has struggled with a lack of collaboration and shared vision on previous projects.

‘I found myself as an actor, a few times, showing up to the premiere of a movie to see it the first time and saying, “Woah. That is not what I thought we were making.” That is such a weird thing to do,’ she admitted at a Kering Women in Motion event in Cannes on Monday.

She previously had said something similar about her critically mauled superhero movie Madame Web, saying she wouldn’t likely do a film like that again ‘because I don’t make sense in that world’.

‘But sometimes in this industry, you sign on to something, and it’s one thing and then as you’re making it, it becomes a completely different thing, and you’re like, “Wait, what?”‘ she told Bustle.

Johnson talked about being ‘surprised’ by previous movies she’s done at the project’s premiere, such as Madame Web (Picture: Columbia Pictures/Sony via AP)

‘But it was a real learning experience, and of course it’s not nice to be a part of something that’s ripped to shreds, but I can’t say that I don’t understand.’

Madame Web was labelled as ‘one of the worst comic book movies I’ve ever seen’ by Chicago-Sun Times critic Richard Roeper, while Rolling Stone’s David Fear called it ‘the Cats: The Movie of superhero movies’.

It was also a box office bomb, earning $100.5million (£75m), which was only marginally more than its reported budget.

She co-produces and stars in Splitsville, which premiered at Cannes (Piicture: Zhivko Mironov/Neon)

In Splitsville, written by The Climb’s Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin and directed by Covino, Johnson plays Julie, a woman in an open marriage with her husband Paul (Covino), who is offering support to his friend Carey (Marvin) after his wife Ashley (Adria Arjona) asks him for a divorce.

But when Carey crosses a boundary, things get very messy very quickly between the two families.

Splitsville premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. It’s scheduled for release in the US on August 22 and is yet to announce a UK release date.

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