Last week, It Ends With Us had major premiere events in New York and London. Blake Lively has also been blitzing the media with TV appearances, interviews and pap strolls. She’s hustling for this film really hard. It’s her first major role in years, and she’s an executive producer on it too. With Blake’s promotion specifically, it does feel like there’s a cult of silence around what it’s actually about: domestic violence. That’s the whole point of “it ends with us.” Only Blake seems to think she’s promoting a ditzy romance full of cute scenes involving fashion, flowers and jewelry. Meanwhile, her costar and director Justin Baldoni has been doing the most to talk about DV and be respectful of the actual subject matter. TikTok caught on that Justin and Blake seem to be promoting IEWU in completely different ways. TikTok also caught on that Blake and Justin have had some kind of falling out and they are not promoting the film together whatsoever. It’s gotten so bad that even the trade papers are following TikTokers’ leads:
As It Ends With Us sails toward a strong opening weekend at the box office, the movie is facing unexpected — and likely unwanted — attention on social media. TikTok has been flooded with speculation about a rift between star-producer Blake Lively and her co-star Justin Baldoni, who also directed the adaptation of Colleen Hoover‘s beloved book.
Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that there was a fracture among the filmmakers in the postproduction process, wherein two different cuts of the movie emerged.
The It Ends With Us sleuthing on TikTok stemmed from Baldoni’s notable absence from joint press events; the lack of group photos of Lively and Baldoni together at Tuesday’s New York premiere; and the fact that neither Lively, Hoover, nor the rest of the cast, follow Baldoni on Instagram (though he follows them). This raised eyebrows, as during the development of the movie, Hoover and Baldoni appeared together on each other’s Instagrams multiple times.
Social media users also began speculating that Lively brought in her husband, Ryan Reynolds, to help take over creative control of the film. This theory was stoked when Lively revealed at the film’s world premiere that Reynolds wrote a key rooftop scene toward the beginning of the movie. “We help each other. He works on everything I do. I work on everything he does. So his wins, his celebrations are mine and mine are his,” she said. The film has a script from Christy Hall.
Reynolds did write a large chunk of dialogue for the scene, multiple insiders tell THR, but not the entire scene. Beyond that, he would have had no time to focus on his wife’s film since he and director Shawn Levy were working 24/7 on Deadpool & Wolverine from the time they were able to resume production in early November 2023 after the SAG-AFTRA strike — and through the laborious postproduction process before embarking on a global publicity tour.
Lively, however, did have a strong say in the film’s creative direction as she was also a producer on the feature on top of being its star. That seemed to extend to having the power to make her own version of the movie. According to multiple sources, Lively commissioned a cut of the movie from editor Shane Reid, who was an editor on Deadpool & Wolverine, and who cut the Lively-directed music video for Taylor Swift’s “I Bet You Think About Me.” It’s unclear if any of this cut was ultimately used in the final project, which was credited to editors Oona Flaherty and Robb Sullivan. One insider played down any friction, noting that it is not uncommon for a film to have several cuts emerge during post, adding that the team was in agreement on the final cut.
I absolutely believe the theory that Ryan Reynolds is a controlling a–hole and he put his stink all over Blake’s big comeback project, and that was a problem with Baldoni and screenwriter Christy Hall. Speaking of, Baldoni was the one who got the rights to the book and he brought in Hall to adapt the script. But the reason why Blake and Ryan kept getting their way was because they’re tight with Colleen Hoover. Basically, THR makes it sound like a mess of big egos and competing agendas. But! Page Six has a much more pro-Blake piece:
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni clashed on the set of “It Ends With Us,” with multiple sources telling Page Six he made her feel “uncomfortable.” One industry source claimed that Baldoni, who also directed the movie, created an “extremely difficult” atmosphere behind the scenes for the entire cast. And another industry insider said there were a few moments on set that made Lively, who is a producer on the project, feel “uncomfortable” about her postpartum body.
Lively, 36, joined “It Ends With Us” soon after giving birth to her fourth child with Ryan Reynolds, son Olin. As photos leaked at the start of production, fans called out Lively’s “frumpy” costumes for her character, Lily Bloom — prompting Lively to delve into her own wardrobe for some of the looks, borrowing clothes from BFF Gigi Hadid and husband Ryan Reynolds and wearing her own jewelry. Sources who have worked with Baldoni were quick to say the father of two would never intentionally set out to make any of his actors feel unsupported. By the end of filming, however, there was apparently no love lost between the cast.
“It’s not just Blake,” added the industry source. “None of the cast enjoyed working with Justin …They certainly didn’t talk to him at the premiere.”
Wait, are they saying that Baldoni said something about her postpartum body AND he made her wear frumpy clothes? Sigh… I mean, it’s a good way to attack him, even if I think it sounds like bullsh-t straight from Ryan and Blake. Also: Baldoni wants no part of the sequel, if a sequel gets greenlighted. He told People Mag that if the sequel happens, Blake should direct it. I doubt Ryan would allow that.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.