Dakota Johnson is “our rock,” Michael De Luca, one of the hotly anticipated film’s producers, told E! News exclusively on the red carpet at the 2013 Hollywood Film Awards tonight. “She’s just so Anastasia Steele. She’s the best partner a producer could have.”

So just how much sway does the 24-year-old Johnson have, now that she’s the sole big name still definitively attached to the project after Charlie Hunnam‘s sudden exit last week? Well, she does get to put the hopefuls to the test—the chemistry test, that is.

“She’s helping us look through the candidates to see which chemistry kind of captures our attention,” De Luca explained.

As for the rumors that Jamie Dornan is the frontrunner to replace Hunnam, the producer said that he couldn’t comment—but he says that he really thinks that the role of Christian Grey will be refilled within the next month.

“We’re looking on your website, we’re looking under rocks in Zimbabwe, in space, on the moon. We’re looking everywhere, but I think in a couple weeks it will be announced and everything will be cool,” DeLuca said.

The filmmaker also said that the film based on the erotic E.L. James bestseller, to be directed by Sam Taylor-Wood, is still on schedule.

“We’re on track. The release date [Aug. 1, 2014] is preserved and we’re gonna kind of keep going,” he said.

Not that losing Hunnam wasn’t a blow, though.

“Charlie, I think, is an amazing actor of his generation or any generation, and we just couldn’t make it work in the time he had to transform into Christian Grey,” De Luca lamented. “But I think if its meant to be its meant to be. I’m convinced we’ll work together again.”

While she and Charlie definitely had chemistry, Dakota Johnson is eager to find out who her new Christian Grey will be, HollywoodLife.com has learned.

At first Dakota Johnson, 24, was sad that Charlie Hunnam wouldn’t be playing her dominant in the film adaptation of 50 Shades of Grey, but she’s actually now helping the producers find a new Christian Grey!

“For Dakota, she was sad that Charlie had to back out but she is very excited to see who will take the role,” a source in the industry told HollywoodLife.com exclusively. ”She is in constant contact with producers and the studio and she is very willing to help out in any way and is looking forward to do readings with everyone who is available for the role. She is taking things well since she is still a part of the film.”

Charlie, 33, dropped out of the film after getting cold feet, a source close to the Sons of Anarchy star confirmed to HollywoodLife.com. Additionally, he wasn’t yet ready for the fame that was going to come with the daring role.

Meanwhile, Dakota is still 100 percent in the film.

“Dakota earned the role and she shouldn’t be worried right now. The only time she will have to worry, if at all, is if they hire someone that has no chemistry with her,” a source told us. “But they are casting the actor with her in mind.”

So, Charlie Hunnam has officially dropped out of Fifty Shades of Grey.

The studio’s statement makes it seem as though he had ‘scheduling issues’ because he’s such a busy actor, but let’s be real – the only thing he has going on is Sons of Anarchy. Unofficially, The Hollywood Reporter’s sources also admitted that Charlie was actually intimidated by the amount of attention he received after being cast, and he got cold feet.

This is interesting because movies of this scale always have complicated contracts involved, and his dropping out isn’t going to just affect him – it’s also going to affect his leading lady, Dakota Johnson. Dakota was always someone the studio was interested in because she was a fresh face, but one of the biggest reasons she was cast was because of her chemistry with Charlie. Fifty Shades of Grey is purely a love story with lots of sex, and without chemistry, the film isn’t going to work. And is Christian Grey, the object of millions of women’s wet dreams, or Anastasia Steele, the object of his affections, more important to the movie?

Obviously, it’s Christian Grey. To the studio and the fans, Christian Grey is a bigger priority. The fan base for the books and films consists almost primarily of women, and to them, it’s way more important that Christian Grey be gorgeous than Anastasia. Why do you think fans were so willing to protest, sign petitions, and boycott the film if Charlie wasn’t replaced?

The studio and filmmakers are probably scrambling to replace him right now, and that means that Dakota will pray for chemistry with the next frontrunner for the role! Fingers crossed.