It's a tale as old as time: boy directs movie adaptation of best-selling novel, boy hires girl to play lead role, boy and girl have creative differences, boy and girl promote the movie together while pretending the other one doesn't exist.
That's a simple summation of the perceived drama brewing between It Ends With Us leads Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively. The pair have been attending premieres of the movie — which raked in more than $80 million in its opening weekend — separately and rumors are swirling about how the stars went from playing lovers in the movie to avoiding each other IRL.
What is It Ends With Us?
It Ends With Us is a movie adaptation of Colleen Hoover's 2016 No. 1 New York Times best-selling novel of the same name. The novel follows Lily Bloom, a florist, and her romantic relationship with Ryle Kincaid, who becomes physically and sexually abusive. The story is loosely based on Hoover's own mother. In 2020, Baldoni first announced he'd be developing and directing the film. In 2023, Hoover took to Instagram to announce that Blake Lively would play the lead role of Bloom and Baldoni would play Kincaid, at Hoover's own insistence.
The movie began production in May 2023 and opened Aug. 9. Lively is a co-producer on the film.
Why are Baldoni and Lively supposedly at odds?
The Hollywood Reporter says it spoke to sources who reported that there had been "a fracture among the filmmakers in the postproduction process" that led Lively to commission a cut of the movie from editor Shane Reid, who worked with her on Taylor Swift’s "I Bet You Think About Me" music video. But other sources that The Hollywood Reporter spoke with said it was not uncommon for a film to have multiple edits made in post-production.
Still, online sleuths say they've found several forms of evidence to back up the rumored bad blood between co-stars. For example, none of the cast follows Baldoni on Instagram. (As of publishing, Baldoni follows Hoover, Lively, and It Ends With Us actress Jenny Slate on Instagram. None of the three women follow him back).
Baldoni has also not appeared in any of the film's red carpet photos with Lively, Hoover, or the rest of the cast, instead opting to walk the carpet on his own or with his wife.
In one red carpet interview, Slate dodged a question about what it was like to work with Baldoni as both a director and scene partner, telling Deadline, "What an intense job, to have to do so many things. I just felt myself being like, 'Wow I really just want to have one job at once.'"
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Some have speculated that a creative power struggle is to blame for the awkwardness, especially after Lively told E! News that her husband, Ryan Reynolds, stepped in to help write a pivotal scene from the movie despite not having any formal involvement in its development. Reynolds has also participated in the movie's promotion, bringing Deadpool & Wolverine co-star Hugh Jackman to the New York City premiere of It Ends With Us and interviewing one of Lively's character's love interests (notably, not Baldoni).
On Aug. 9, Page Six reported that, according to insider sources, Baldoni made Lively feel "uncomfortable" about her postpartum body during filming and created an "extremely difficult" workplace environment on set.
What have Baldoni and Lively said about each other?
At the time of publishing, Lively has avoided addressing her work with Baldoni, opting instead to praise the support of her husband throughout production. But, like Slate, she chose to dodge a question posed to her by Yahoo Entertainment about working with Baldoni, talking instead about the character of Ryle and Hoover's depiction of him in the novel.
Baldoni has so far been publicly gracious about Lively and hubby Reynolds, telling Today, "You can’t summarize Blake’s contribution in a sentence because her energy and imprint is all over the movie and really, really made the film better, and from beginning to end. Ryan (Reynolds) was so generous... he’s a creative genius... His gift is levity, and her gift is levity." When asked if he would work with the pair again, he said, "If they'd have me."
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight Baldoni said that, when it comes to directing the sequel It Starts with Us, "I think there are better people for that one. I think Blake Lively is ready to direct."
But, on Aug. 14, The Hollywood Reporter shared that Baldoni had hired PR and crisis manager Melissa Nathan, who has represented Johnny Depp since his public trial against Amber Heard. Off-camera, Baldoni leads a second career as an evangelist for gender equality. He has written a book and given a TED Talk about his desire to "redefine" modern masculinity. Notably, "It Ends With Us" is about the generational cycle of domestic violence. So hiring a PR manager who represents Depp, an accused domestic abuser who also may have hired services to enact a mass-scale disinformation campaign against Heard, is a terrible look for Baldoni.
What else is the film under fire for?
The film's team, including Lively, have been criticized for their light-hearted promotion of what is ultimately a depiction of domestic violence.
In interviews, Lively has repeatedly avoided addressing central themes of the film. When asked how someone who "relates to the topics of this movie on a deeply personal level" should approach her in public, Lively responded with a joke.
"Ask me for my address or my phone number or my location share," she said with a laugh. "I'm a Virgo so I'm like, are we talking logistic are we talking emotionally?"
It is one of several Lively appearances that has been critiqued on TikTok over the past few weeks.
Lively has also used the film to promote her brand Betty Buzz by selling "Betty Blooms," a limited series of bouquets housed in Betty Buzz bottles, as a tie-in to her character's love for flowers. As noted by the New York Times, a promotional email sent in the lead-up to the film's release included recipes for It Ends With Us-themed cocktails using Betty Buzz. One of the recipes also called for Aviation Gin, a brand owned by Lively's husband.
Lively's red carpet and street styles have taken inspiration from Lily Bloom, too; she has consistently stepped out in colorful, floral, frilly dresses befitting the interests of her character, yes, but perhaps not the seriousness of the role.
These choices have been part of what Rolling Stone's CT Jones calls a "glossy marketing campaign is proving that Hollywood hasn’t found a respectful way to market movies about domestic violence." Instead, "It’s prioritized selling a romance by covering up the themes of abuse at almost every opportunity."
Topics Film
