Please note – trigger warning in this article for domestic violence.
Normally when a movie with a $25 million budget opens with $50 million at the domestic box office, $80 million worldwide, and finishes a close second behind one of the most successful movies of the year, it’s considered a win. As for the reviews, even though the critics weren’t fond of it, moviegoers responded with an A- rating on CinemaScore. That, too, is also considered a win… typically.
But nothing about the It Ends With Us press tour leading up to the release and post-release reaction is typical. Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds became the first wife-husband to top the box office in 34 years, since Demi Moore and Bruce Willis. And yet…at least in public… it doesn’t feel all that celebratory. Because of all the rumours about what is or isn’t happening behind the scenes between Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively, and maybe also Ryan Reynolds.
Sarah covered this last week and since then, while there’s been a lot of talk and speculation, there’s only really been one report from last Friday that’s added more to the story. According to a Page Six source, Justin created an “extremely difficult” vibe on set. Another sourced added that “there were a few moments on set that made [Blake] feel uncomfortable about her postpartum body”. And that, “It’s not just Blake. None of the cast enjoyed working with Justin… they certainly didn’t talk to him at the premiere”.
Page Six also noted that sources who have worked with Justin before insisted that “the father of two would never intentionally set out to make any of his actors feel unsupported”. I don’t know why the “father of two” is necessary here. Fathers can be assholes, too. But anyway, that’s pretty much the extent of what Page Six could offer and beyond that, there’s no other legitimate sourcing from any of the trades, like Variety or The Hollywood Reporter etc. Which in itself is weird because you would think that the studio would want to step in and smooth sh-t over if they could, and those outlets are definitely calling around for answers, and the fact that they haven’t gotten any suggests that they can’t agree on a strategy with how to address this mess.
In Matthew Belloni’s Puck newsletter today though, he did give some insight on a quote that’s been shared over the last few days.
“I think Blake Lively’s ready to direct, that’s what I think.”
Some people are reading sarcasm into that, fueled by the speculation that Blake and Ryan Reynolds took over the production, cut a different version of the film, and pushed Justin out of a project that he secured the rights to. But now his business partner is clarifying. Matthew Belloni reports that:
“Jamey Heath, C.E.O. of Wayfarer Studios [Justin’s production company] told me today that despite the reports of fights during postproduction and dueling cuts of the movie, Baldoni didn’t mean to suggest in his Entertainment Tonight interview that if Lively really wants control, she should just direct the damn sequel herself.”
Interestingly in his newsletter, Matthew also seems to downplay the drama, ending his piece on the situation with this note teasing to the next section, written by Scott Mendelson, which covers how studios should be more interested in films not just like It Ends With Us, but films that are made specifically for female audiences who are tired of being ignored in the theatrical marketplace:
“Okay, whatever. Everyone’s been so consumed with this dumb feud that the outsize success of It Ends With Us almost feels like an afterthought. But a $50 million opening for a $25 million romance-drama with a domestic violence storyline begs the question: How did this happen?”
I mean, on the one hand, given Matthew Belloni’s relationship with studio executives and his increasing footprint and influence in the Hollywood ecosystem, his dismissal of this mystery beef is frustrating because it’s real gossip between creatives, some of whom (if Ryan really is part of this chaos) carry a lot of weight. On the other hand, he does have a point in that, well, this is a success story for low-to-mid budget movies prioritising a female audience, no matter what you think of the actual source material or execution. And that success story is being overshadowed by conflict between the principals.
Other media coverage includes a PEOPLE article published last night that is a whole lot of nothing. PEOPLE built its story around one quote:
"All is not what it seems," a set source tells PEOPLE. "There is much more to this story. The principal cast and [author] Colleen Hoover will have nothing to do with him."
The rest of the article is just background, rehashing information from the last week. So to recap, Blake, Colleen Hoover, and the rest of the cast have unfollowed Justin on socials. His podcast partner, Liz Plank, who is also friends with Blake, tagged only Blake in her posts from the premiere and has not mentioned Justin. Also Blake asked Ryan to tweak the dialogue in a scene from the movie which is not super respectful of the screenwriter Christy Hall. No one is acknowledging on the record what the tension is really about. And I should note here that I have tried connecting with sources I speak to often about this situation and no one is giving up much. But, of course, the internet has already decided who’s right and who’s wrong – and it’s pretty much summed up in this TikTok:
@evie.magazine The internet isn’t happy with how Blake Lively has been conducting herself in “It Ends With Us†PR, comparing her interviews to Justin Baldoni’s. After seeing interviews side-by-side, what do you think? #itendswithus #itendswithusmovie #itendswithusbook #blakelively #justinbaldoni
♬ original sound - Evie Girl Shop
My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that I’m much more interested in the reaction to all of this than what the actual gossip is. And some of it is squicking me. Like I’m not a Blake Lively superfan but literally all the women involved in the project, and even a woman who isn’t involved in the project but who knows both Blake and Justin (Liz Plank), are not f-cking with this man. Which in any other circumstance is a red flag, right?! But not here. Here people are pointing to Blake’s florals and her haircare line and the way she’s been talking about the movie and supposedly not raising awareness about domestic violence, and labelling her the big villain.
What makes this situation different?
The timing of the release of the haircare line is definitely a miscalculation. Because the accusation being levelled at Blake by the pro-Justin side of the internet is that in promoting her haircare she’s disrespecting DV survivors. Putting together (what she considers) a pretty wardrobe for the press tour and encouraging people to wear florals to the movie is, to them, an insult to what DV survivors have been through. They’re saying she’s going about It Ends With Us like it’s Barbie and given what the movie’s really about, the messaging isn’t landing all that well – at least for some.
These are fair criticisms of work that isn’t well executed. But I’m not sure that it speaks to intention. I can see a world in which Blake and her team were trying to live up to what she said about the “multitudes”. And when she talked about her character’s clothes, she tried to explain the role that clothes play in storytelling:
"For me, wardrobe is the way that I enter a character... I felt like Lily's wardrobe was really, really important to me that it was both utility and then fabulous-glam, it was masculine and feminine, it was old and new, and it was all the things that she is," she explained to Extra. "She (has) contradictions, but also you see how they make sense together and she's trying to reconcile her past while, you know, making way for her future. I think you see all of that storytelling in her wardrobe."
"You've gotta really be in your skin to dress like [Lily]. You've gotta know who you are and have a strong sense of self. So, I think that's probably the most critical thing, is to see somebody who's not flailing or trying to figure out who they are or grasping, someone who really has both feet on the ground and has a strong sense of self also lose themselves and not realise that they're losing themselves, I think is really powerful. I think we conveyed that. Wardrobe does a lot to convey that."
I find this really ironic, because a few years ago, Duana and I roasted Blake on the Show Your Work podcast for “popping off” when asked about clothing on a red carpet honouring women and power. At the time, she was all like, “this is an inappropriate question” but didn’t seem to know why it was inappropriate – and it wasn’t. A year later she showed up on the A Simple Favor press tour and her clothes were the main event, and the clothing questions weren’t an issue anymore because, it would seem, she figured out that clothing is work, it’s part of the work, and it’s personal expression, and it’s about choice and how women in particular are choosing to present themselves to the world.
Cut to It Ends With Us and we’ve come all the way back around and she’s being dragged by the internet for her pretty florals, even though she’s tried to explain how her clothing choices, both in the film and on the red carpet, reflect that women are more than just one thing. That a DV survivor doesn’t have to be defined by her abuser and the abuse; that women can care about a pretty dress and encourage other women to wear pretty dresses but also understand that they can watch a movie about DV in a pretty dress and be able to engage with the story and the painful circumstances it presents; that a woman can star in a film in which her character experiences trauma but also be an entrepreneur in real life, because it's not like George Clooney hasn’t ever made a movie about war crimes while also promoting tequila.
That’s what Blake was TRYING to do. Did she pull it off? Obviously not if so many people are reacting this way. But my point was about intention. Do we really believe that she all along was intending to be dismissive of domestic violence and survivors and schemed Justin Baldoni out of the director’s chair on purpose? Or did she have good intentions and fumble the execution?
To me, this may explain why her co-stars, aka allllll the other women in this conversation, from the author to the actors, are standing with her. Because they would have known about her intention and even though she executed her plans poorly, and probably needed a lot more strategic consultation (like she needs a stylist), they understood the message she was attempting to convey.
According to the internet, Justin Baldoni is delivering that message much more effectively. And practically being lionised for it – as seen in that TikTok I posted above. This is what’s giving me the squicks. Take the gossip out of this situation and let’s look at it for what it is: a story about a woman who falls in love with a man who is abusive. Survivors are not responsible for the abuse they experience. Survivors should not be blamed for loving their abusers. Survivors are more than the abuse they experience, the abuse should not define them. Survivors should not be expected to perform their trauma and/or be expected to “act” a certain way to be believed that they have been traumatised by abuse. Survivors can experience a range of emotions and should not be required to only present pain. Survivors can talk about their trauma if they choose but they can also choose to focus on all the other parts of their lives that form the whole of who they are.
A disproportionate amount of domestic abuse survivors are women. This means that most of the time, the abusers are men. And yet the responsibility for talking about domestic violence, and raising awareness of it, and oftentimes having to defend that it did indeed happen to them, falls to the people who lived through it: women. What we hope for, if there is to be change, is for men to interrogate toxic male culture, and to lead this conversation. Which, to his credit, Justin Baldoni is doing. But, like, why are people out here giving him flowers for doing the basic and pissing on her for not taking the lead on it? He SHOULD be the one taking the lead. He’s the director and the actor who is playing the abuser. That’s MORE his job than hers. I’ll say it again, louder. That’s more HIS job than hers. He’s doing his job, great. Her job is to portray a survivor of domestic abuse in all kinds of different shades and promote the idea that a survivor can find joy and silliness and be vain and pretty and have fun despite the pain that they have endured. She did not stick the landing on that job, she may even have tripped on the way there, but should she be vilified for it?
Her colleagues don’t seem to be vilifying her for it – not Jenny Slate, not Isabela Ferrer, not Colleen Hoover, and not Liz Plank. Again, these are all women. And the counterpoint on that is that Blake and Ryan are so powerful, of course these people would be falling in line to kiss their asses. I don’t know if I buy that about Jenny Slate and I’m not sure Liz Plank would actually kiss Blake’s ass in hopes of an opportunity that may never come from Blake and Ryan at the expense of her actual current job?
If we’re talking about power though, there’s a detail that people are missing in so many of these social media analyses of about whatever’s happening here, and it was buried in Page Six’s report from Friday when sources said Justin made the set “difficult” and Blake “uncomfortable”. It’s about the screening in New York last week – most fixated on the fact that Blake and Justin were at separate screenings after not posing together on the carpet and skipped over this part:
“Sources said Baldoni sat in his one theater at AMC Lincoln Square with family, friends and execs from Sony and Baldoni’s production company, while Lively watched the movie in a different theater with her own guests, including sister Robyn Lively and her nieces and nephews.”
Justin Baldoni was with “execs from Sony”. That’s the STUDIO. That’s the money. And to go back to Matthew Belloni’s Puck newsletter from today, securing a quote from Jamey Heath, the CEO of Wayfarer, which is the production company that Justin founded with $125 million in funding, Matthew writes:
“Not a bad five-year overnight success story, and the caliber of projects at Wayfarer will likely get better, feud or no feud, Lively or no Lively. “We have the ability to pull the trigger on anything we want to make,” Heath told me.”
Blake and Ryan are not Goliaths going up against Justin’s David in this situation. For sure, Ryan has a huge profile and a lot of clout but I don’t know that we can say that Justin Baldoni is an ant being stepped on. He’s doing business with Sony executives at the premiere, his CEO is out here building on the success of this movie. He is a man who has made his whole brand and personality around being “Man Enough” to deprogram from toxic masculinity. The power imbalance may not be as significant as some would suggest.
Let us know what you think at The Squawk today.
