By AMY DANGELICO

Special to the Daily Planet

The film adaptation of the outrageously successful erotic novel “Fifty Shades of Grey” by British author E.L. James will premiere in U.S. theaters Feb. 13 — just in time for Valentine’s Day weekend.

Since its first printing in 2011, the 500-plus-page novel of bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism with a wee bit of romance has had folks — women, in particular — buzzing about what has been dubbed as “mommy porn.”

In addition to the original book, the “Fifty Shades” enterprise now includes the second and third volumes of the trilogy (“Fifty Shades Darker” and “Fifty Shades Freed,” respectively) as well as the major motion picture and its star-studded soundtrack.

And as typically follows with any wildly popular phenomenon, “50 Shades of Grey” has been made a target for satire. 

“50 Shades! The Musical Parody,” a stage production spoof of the original novel, was performed Jan. 31 at Thomas Wolfe Auditorium.

The theatrical parody, which uses a suburban book club as a framing device in its send-up of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” began as a small production in Edinburgh, Scotland.

In just two years, the production has expanded to off-Broadway and Las Vegas runs, gone on tour — including its recent stop in Asheville — and spawned Dutch, Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese versions.

Similar to Matt Parker and Trey Stone’s “The Book of Mormon,” the tunes of “50 Shades! The Musical Parody” pay homage to classic musical theater styles — with references to “Phantom of the Opera” and “Les Miserables” — while also incorporating other genres such as tango and gospel.

Along with “50 Shades!,” other spoofs include “Spank! The Fifty Shades Parody” and “Cuff Me: The Fifty Shades of Grey Musical Parody,” in addition to book parodies such as Fanny Merkin’s “Fifty Shames of Earl Grey” and E.L. Jamesbergstein’s “Fifty Shades of Oy Vey.” 

But for what it’s worth, when you look back at the start of this spectacle, the rise of “Fifty Shades of Grey” in popular culture is truly an impressive self-publication success story.

The trilogy, originally titled “Master of the Universe,” was first posted online in 2009 as “Twilight” fan-fiction. (That’s right — Anastasia “Ana” Steele was initially written as Bella Swan and Christian Grey, Edward Cullen.)

After rewriting the story (and renaming its characters), James showed her work to The Writers’ Coffee Shop, an Australia-based virtual publisher who then released “Fifty Shades of Grey” as an e-book and a print-on-demand paperback in May 2011.

Due to budget restrictions, early publicity of the novel was heavily dependent on book blogs. The online reviews inspired the word-of-mouth recommendations that eventually led James to a seven-figure book deal with Random House’s Vintage Books imprint.

Since then, “Fifty Shades” has sold more than 45 million copies in the U.S. and more than 100 million worldwide. It was named the U.K.’s fast-selling paperback of all time, and later, the bestselling book in British history (please, simmer on that one).

In March 2012, Universal Pictures and its art-house film division, Focus Features, attained the film rights of “Fifty Shades,” outbidding Warner Brothers, Sony and Paramount, among others. In addition to James, the film is produced by Michael De Luca and Dana Brunetti, the same duo who collaborated on the Oscar-nominated hit, “The Social Network.”

The film stars Dakota Johnson as Ana and Jamie Dornan as Christian. 

The trailer for the film, released July 24, accumulated over 100 million views in its first week, making the two-and-a-half-minute promotion the biggest online trailer ever released in history.

In fact, “Fifty Shades” has been so remarkably successful that it has left many baffled.

The story, which follows the relationship between a virginal college student, Ana, and a handsome, young billionaire, Christian, is one we have all actually heard before. 

“(It is) a story that adds kinkiness to the basic formula: a rich, handsome bachelor falls for a young, innocent beauty,” Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times noted.

Aside from their decidedly untraditional sex lives, Ana and Christian seem to fulfill their archetypal character roles almost perfectly: the beauty, who is curious about — and then, surprised by — the depth of her own carnal desires, and the bachelor, who is incapable — or so he believes — of love.

Thus, the run-of-the-mill characters and mediocre plot cannot explain the story’s success.

According to Dave Barry of TIME Magazine, “If Jane Austen (another bestselling female British author) came back to life and read this book, she would kill herself.”

So surely its success cannot be explained by its less-than-canon-worthy prose, either.

The only explanation left is this: the success of literature is part dependent on writing and part dependent on how the subject matter is relevant to the important issues of our lives.

While other books address issues of poverty, race, familial relationships and the like, “Fifty Shades” not only exposes, but explores the topic of sexual taboos.

Though it may not investigate this topic through writing that will raise the standards for future generations, credit is due for investigating it at all. 

The success of the “Fifty Shades” enterprise is proof that erotica is at least interesting, if not important, to millions.