- “It Ends With Us,” starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, was released in theaters on Friday.
- Speculation of a fallout between the two stars arose after fans noticed how little they’ve interacted on the press tour.
- A source told The Hollywood Reporter that creative differences arose in post-production.
“It Ends With Us,” Sony’s glossy, Blake Lively-starring bet on BookTok’s most popular author, is set to have an impressive opening weekend, with projections suggesting that it may end up taking home more at the box office than its $25 million budget.
It sounds like a cause for celebration for Lively and her costar and director, Justin Baldoni. However, if the rumors about the status of the pair’s working relationship are to be believed, they’ll likely be raising a glass separately.
Over the last few days, TikTok, Reddit, and X (formerly Twitter) have been flooded with speculation that a rift of “Don’t Worry Darling” proportions has come between the film’s two most famous faces. Those rumors have now been supported by industry sources.
Here’s everything we know about the rumored falling out between Baldoni and Lively — and how Ryan Reynolds might factor in.
Baldoni has been largely absent from press events with other cast members
Rumors that there could be bad blood between the “Jane the Virgin” star and Lively began swirling after internet sleuths noticed that the two haven’t been promoting the film together. In fact, the two have seemingly not interacted once during the press tour.
Lively has teamed up with costars Brandon Sklenar and Isabela Ferrer for press events, as well as Colleen Hoover, the author of the book the film is based on, for interviews and TV spots. Baldoni, on the other hand, has been doing a lot of solo press.
Both attended the New York movie premiere on Tuesday but chose not to be photographed together. Instead, Lively posed with her castmates, Hoover, her husband Reynolds, and his “Deadpool & Wolverine” costar, Hugh Jackman (Lively and Jackman were revealed as the cover stars of the September issue of Vogue this week, which also explains his presence).
Baldoni, meanwhile, was only photographed with his wife and some of the other producers who worked on the film.
Per an Instagram Story shared by Liz Plank, who cohosts a podcast with Baldoni, only Hoover and Lively stood up to address the audience ahead of the film’s screening. Baldoni also did not attend the UK premiere of the movie on Thursday.
While speaking to Entertainment Tonight on the carpet at the New York premiere, Baldoni explained why he was stepping back from the limelight.
“This isn’t my night — this is a night for all the women who we made this movie for,” he said.” This is a night for Blake, this is a night for Colleen. I’m just so grateful that we’re here, five years in the making.”
But fans appeared to not take notice of these comments, or consider the possibility Baldoni may have felt uneasy centering the attention on himself, given his character’s storyline in the movie.
One TikTok video analyzing the premiere and the potential drama has now garnered over 2 million views. “There is clearly something going on with this movie,” the TikToker says.
Most of the movie’s cast don’t appear to follow Baldoni on Instagram
As a user on the r/ColleenHoover subreddit pointed out earlier this week, Lively and Hoover don’t currently follow Baldoni on Instagram. However, Business Insider couldn’t verify whether they ever followed him to begin with.
Neither do other stars of the film, including Brandon Sklenar, Isabella Ferrer, and Jenny Slate, per a cursory check by BI. For what it’s worth, Baldoni does appear to be following all five of them.
It’s made fans wonder if the beef is one-sided or whether Baldoni is at the center of a wider-spread fracture, especially since, during pre-production, Hoover and Baldoni appeared on each other’s Instagram feeds multiple times.
Adding to this theory is a clip of Slate seemingly sidestepping a question about Baldoni at the movie’s New York premiere. Asked about having Baldoni as both a scene partner and a director, she responded by not mentioning Baldoni and instead speaking about how “intense” it must be to do both jobs.
According to sources, there are two different cuts of the movie
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the origin of the fracture may be the different directions those involved wanted to take the movie in.
A source told the publication that two different cuts of the movie emerged during the postproduction process.
One cut, commissioned by Lively, came from “Deadpool & Wolverine” editor Shane Reid, multiple sources told the outlet. He is the same editor Lively previously used when she directed the music video for Taylor Swift’s “I Bet You Think About Me.”
The final cut of the film, however, has been credited to editors Oona Flaherty and Robb Sullivan.
It’s unclear if any of Reid’s cut was used in the film version showing in theaters, but according to one source who spoke to THR, the team was in agreement on the final cut.
Lively credited her husband, Ryan Reynolds, with unofficially contributing to the film
Baldoni has spoken about the collaborative nature of the film, telling Today in an interview published on Friday that Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, contributed significantly to the film. While Lively is credited as a producer, Reynolds is not.
“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,” Baldoni said.
While he didn’t speak to how exactly Reynolds contributed, Baldoni said that Reynolds was “so generous” and “a creative genius.”
Asked if he would work with the pair again, he replied: “If they’d have me.”
Lively herself has been open about her husband’s contribution, revealing to E! News that the MCU star helped pen the opening scene of “It Ends With Us.”
This appeared to come as a surprise to screenwriter Christy Hall, who told People that she wasn’t aware that Reynolds had written some of the dialogue used in the final version of the script.
“When I saw a cut, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s cute. That must have been a cute improvised thing,’” Hall said. “So if I’m being told that Ryan wrote that, then great, how wonderful.”
In his Today interview, Baldoni also hinted at how he struggled to balance allowing collaboration and having his voice drowned out entirely.
He said: “You don’t have to listen to everybody and that didn’t happen all the time, but there were just moments where I would get out of the way too much.”
While Lively has yet to discuss how she contributed to the film beyond her scope as a producer, Baldoni has suggested that she may be interested in taking the reins on a sequel.
“I think that there are better people for that one,” when asked by Entertainment Tonight if he was up for adapting Hoover’s 2022 follow-up novel.
“I think Blake Lively’s ready to direct, that’s what I think,” he added.
Representatives for Lively, Reynolds, Hoover, and Baldoni did not respond to a request for comment.
