Ticket sales and fan excitement around It Ends With Us are really starting to swell. The movie took in more than $8M last night, roughly the same amount as Fifty Shades Of Grey during its Thursday night previews, and Hollywood insiders are starting to predict it’ll easily surpass its entire production budget in the first weekend. Reviews have also been halfway decent and audience scores off the charts, as Sony looks to potentially have a big hit on its hands. Unfortunately, over the last twenty-four hours, much of the conversation around the movie has shifted away from that excitement and toward rumors of possible behind the scenes drama.
The noise all started on TikTok, as fans started pointing out some odd things about the press tour. Specifically, they noticed how the cast doesn’t seem to be interacting much with director and co-star Justin Baldoni. Almost all of his press appearances have been by himself, while the rest of the cast have done numerous shared interviews. Author Colleen Hoover, who did some events with Baldoni prior to filming also seems to be doing a whole lot with Lively and nothing at all with Baldoni, at least that is coming out publicly. At the premiere, numerous cast members took photos with each other, but none seemed to take any photos with Baldoni, at least that appeared on their stories. The key cast members plus Hoover also all seem to follow each other on Instagram and do not follow him, which has been the source of a ton of TikTok speculation.
Now, you never know exactly how much smoke there might be to these online fan investigations. There were certainly plenty of whispers around Don’t Worry Darling, and you could point to a half dozen other movies that got the same treatment. Sometimes fans misinterpret things and rarely do they have a full story, but in this case, a new report from The Hollywood Reporter has added a little back-up.
The outlet spoke to sources close to the movie, and while no one commented on the record, a story allegedly started to emerge of a “fracture” between Lively and Baldoni during the post-production process. She allegedly asked Deadpool And Wolverine editor Shane Reid to make his own cut of the movie. He’s not listed on the final version, with the credit officially going to Oona Flaherty and Robb Sullivan, but it’s unclear if any of his work or ideas were ultimately used in the final version. What is agreed upon, apparently, is that Ryan Reynolds got involved.
The Hollywood mega-star, who is married to Blake Lively, re-wrote the dialogue for a key rooftop scene near the beginning of the movie. The back-and-forth serves as a meet-cute for the couple and plays a key role in the larger narrative arc. It’s very well put together, and Lively has been open in the press about praising Reynolds for his work on the scene, including in an interview with E!. Reynolds has also shown up to support the movie's press tour but has publicly interacted with Lively's other co-lead, not Baldoni.
Several days ago when the story about the rooftop re-write came out, fans initially took it as a fun example of the famous spouses helping each other out, especially given he’s likewise praised her for her help on Deadpool & Wolverine. But now amidst all these alleged behind the scenes problems, his presence is being interpreted by some fans as a sign that things may have been going sideways for awhile, at least concerning the trust between Lively and Baldoni.
If some of what is being said is true, it’s important to note It Ends WIth Us is far from the first movie with competing cuts. We famously went through all of this with Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon on Justice League (though that involved reshoots), and there was so much disagreement around the Oscar-nominated American History X that director Tony Kaye asked for his name to be removed. Creative people have often very opinionated perspectives about their art, and those opinions can sometimes cause very hard feelings.
What’s actually going on here behind the scenes, however, could be particularly important in this case, however, because this movie has a potential sequel. Colleen Hoover has already published a sequel called It Starts With Us, and if It Ends With Us makes as much money during this run as people are speculating it might, the studio (and fans) are probably going to want a sequel, which Baldoni’s co-lead is very much a key part of.
The good news is, regardless of all this noise, It Ends With Us is pretty good. I saw it the other night, and it went over really well with the fans in attendance. It’s a well-acted movie with some thoughtful things to say about domestic violence, and it’s going to resonate with a lot of people, even if everyone involved didn’t see eye-to-eye.
