The two sequels to the film adaptation of EL James’s erotic worldwide bestseller have finally found their director. James Foley, best known for his work directing Glengarry Glen Ross and Netflix’s House of Cards, has been brought in by Universal Pictures to helm both films, according to The Wrap. He has been connected with the job since August.

Foley will shoot Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed back-to-back next year, when Jamie Dornan will return as the business mogul Christian Grey, along with Dakota Johnson as college student and love interest, Anastasia Steele.

James’s husband, the author Niall Leonard, will write both screenplays after James failed to gel with the first film’s screenwriter Kelly Marcel. He also worked on the script for Fifty Shades of Grey but was not credited.

Sam Taylor-Johnson, who directed the first instalment, was not expected to return following confirmed reports that she clashed with James on set over the film’s tone and use of dialogue.

“It was difficult, I’m not going to lie,” she told Porter magazine. “We definitely fought, but they were creative fights and we would resolve them. We would have proper on-set ‘barneys’, and I’m not confrontational, but it was about finding a way between the two of us, satisfying her vision of what she’d written as well as my need to visualise this person on screen. But, you know, we got there.”

Fifty Shades Darker is scheduled for release on 10 February 2017 and Fifty Shades Freed will be released on 9 February 2018 – both timed to coincide with Valentine’s Day.

The first film in the franchise opened during the same timeframe in 2014, and grossed over $560m worldwide.