Luke Grimes, who just joined the cast of ‘True Blood‘ last season as James, Jessica’s brooding lover, will not be returning for the seventh and final season.  Instead, his part will be recast as the actor has requested to be released from his contract.  As HBO states “The role of James is being recast due to the creative direction of the character.”

It appears that Grimes was unhappy with his character’s upcoming story lines.  As an insider states “He initially joined the show because he wanted to work with [his ‘Forever’ co-star] Deborah Ann Woll [Jessica].  But when he started reading the scripts for Season 7, he was disappointed to learn that they were going in a completely different direction with James.”

Another possible factor is that Grimes will be starring in the movie adaptation of ’50 Shades of Grey’ as Christian Grey’s brother, Elliot.  He was still signed to ‘True Blood’ when he was cast, but then filming of the movie was moved up, which caused doubt about whether or not the actor would even be available to return to the HBO vampire drama.

James was brought on to replace Hoyt Fortenberry (Jim Parrack), Jessica’s human boyfriend who moved away from Bon Temps.

The final season of ‘True Blood’ is scheduled to air on HBO in the summer of 2014 and ’50 Shades of Grey’ is slated to be in theaters in 2015.

Are you a fan of Grimes? Upset to see him go? How do you feel about another actor taking over?

Sources TV Line and Deadline