It Ends With Us did unexpectedly well at the box office, earning $80 million worldwide on its opening weekend, but the film’s marketing is getting dragged online for never mentioning the real theme of the film.
It Ends With Us is an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s 2016 novel of the same name, starring Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively. This is the first time the beloved yet controversial author has a film adaptation, and it’s of a novel that has divided opinion. It Ends With Us follows Lily Bloom, a florist who gets into a relationship with Ryle, a neurosurgeon, and realizes things aren’t as great as she initially thought. At the same time, she is reconnecting with Atlas, her high school sweetheart.
It Ends With Us is simply a story about abuse. Colleen Hoover noted that it was the “hardest book” she’s ever written, and that she drew inspiration from her mother’s relationship with her father and her decision to get away from that relationship so she could set a good example. While the film also tackles this difficult theme, you wouldn’t know it from the film’s marketing.
Fans dragged It Ends With Us’ marketing
In 2023, Colleen Hoover announced the plans to release a coloring book based on the novel. Considering the novel’s serious subject, she later canceled the project following the backlash. The novel also drew negative reactions from readers after it was marketed and sold as romance instead of fiction.
The same is happening now with the highly-anticipated film. Jane the Virgin‘s Justin Baldoni directed and starred in the film as Ryle, and got the rights for the adaptation in 2019. Baldoni fought hard to make the film via his production company, Wayfarer Studios, and it premiered on Aug. 9.
Since the film started its press tour, it featured only flowers, pink tones, and floral dresses. In one of the recent videos, Lively says, “Grab your friends, wear your florals,” as if going to a rom-com instead of a film with a serious message, which has attracted a lot of negative comments from fans.
sabrinamgrimaldi on TikTok notes that “some of the marketing is very rom-com-esque […] even though this a story that is not so light-hearted.” The user goes on to note the discrepancy between Justin Baldoni’s PR for the film and Lively’s, which differ completely. While Baldoni is addressing the film’s real message and the importance of the story, Lively has continuously talked about the movie as if it’s a romantic comedy and dodged any questions about its serious message.
Fans also note that, instead of speaking about the film’s message, Lively focused on wearing the best outfits and addressed wearing Britney Spears’ iconic Versace dress, promoted her new haircare line, or baked. It Ends with Us is an adaptation with a strong message, and shining light on it could only be to its benefit. Instead, fans complained in the comments that they went blindly into the theater, believing it was a rom-com, and were heavily triggered by the film.
The comments on It Ends With Us‘ official Instagram account share the same sentiment. “Why is the marketing for this film so tone deaf?” asked a fan, with another asking, “Is this movie about flowers and Blake Lively’s outfits or about Domestic Violence?” with another writing, “I came here to remind everyone that this is a movie about DV, which is an extremely hard watch for MANY survivors and seeing this giggle fest of a promo tour has been baffling for its tone deafness.”
Unpacking the It Ends With Us behind-the-scenes drama between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni
If the marketing for the film wasn’t enough, Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively avoided each other like the plague the entire press tour. It all started simple enough, with the two of them promoting the film separately, which could’ve come down to timing. However, at the premiere, the main cast avoided Justin Baldoni completely, and they all avoided answering questions about working with him, Lively and Jenny Slate included.
The reason behind this is unknown, so take the following with a grain of salt. From the looks of it, Blake Lively wanted more creative control on the film. Lively was also a producer on the film, and noted in a recent interview with Variety that she did “everything” on the film: “It was so important to me to work off camera,” Lively explained. “The work I did as a producer was far more all-consuming than anything I did playing Lily. I just did it all. There’s nothing I didn’t touch on this film,” she said.
At the same time, reading between the lines, Baldoni revealed that he thinks Lively is “ready” to handle a sequel, should there ever be one, and smoothly withdrew from the conversation.
Lively went as far as allowing her husband, Ryan Reynolds, to rewrite an important scene from the film, although he’s not a part of the movie. “The iconic rooftop scene, my husband actually wrote it,” Lively told E! News. “Nobody knows that, but you now.” She admitted it during the film’s premiere, and the original screenwriter and co-producer, Christy Hall, apparently had no idea. Hall explained that writing the scene where they met was challenging, and that she rewrote it several times until she was proud of it. Little did she know, Reynolds had his take and she found out at the premiere. Hall was also among the only ones to address Baldoni, noting that “I feel like he really cares.”
Initially, Colleen Hoover sang Justin Baldoni’s praises for trying to adapt the story as faithfully as he could, but that changed. Lively, Hoover, and the rest of the cast unfollowed Baldoni on social media, although he still follows them and praised their hard work.
Allegedly, Lively and Baldoni argued over the final version of the movie and each had a different version. They showed the cuts to a test audience and, although Baldoni’s version scored higher, they ended up using Lively’s.
So far, there is no official statement on any of the creative differences so this is all speculation, but with so much evidence, there’s more fire than smoke.