Cinema has been lacking in new content with Disney making an endless stream of sequels and most movies in theaters being remakes such as Deadpool and Wolverine and Twisters. Watchers are tired of repeatedly seeing the same thing, so naturally, directors turned to books. During the pandemic, Booktok was created, a subcommunity on TikTok that focuses on books, this created a surge in popularity for fantasy, romance, and YA books. If you walk into your local Barnes & Noble you’ll find a Booktok table, filled with books written by an author named Colleen Hoover.
Colleen Hoover is an American author who primarily writes romance and young adult books, her most popular book by far is It Ends With Us written in 2016. It’s centered around Lily Blossom Bloom, a 23-year-old woman who is trying to escape the cycle of abuse from her father but she meets Ryle Kincaid, a neurosurgeon who seems perfect but turns out to be just like her father. While with Ryle she reconnects with her childhood love Atlas Corrigan who now is a successful chef and still in love with Lily. The book became so popular that talk about it becoming a movie floated around social media.
In July 2019, Justin Baldoni bought the rights to It Ends With Us using his Wayfarer Studios and signed on to be the director. Blake Lively stars as Lily Bloom, with two love interests, Justin Baldoni as Ryle and Brandon Sklenar as Atlas. This caused controversy because readers envisioned a younger actress to play Lily as well as a younger actor for Atlas. Already viewers had mixed feelings but then photos of the filming came out. A major part of Booktok is creating an aesthetic for the books, an ambiance, so when pictures of Lively in mixed match patterns, thousands of layers, combat boots, and lots of denim, it’s easy to say people were worried.
The movie premiered in August 9, 2024, earning one hundred million dollars after just eleven days. Something that overshadowed the film, why people are still talking about it, is the press tour and the things it revealed. when the film premiered in New York spectators noticed that Baldoni was nowhere to be seen with the rest of the cast. He didn’t pose with anyone from the film and it is rumored that he watched the film in a different theater than his cast-mates. This created speculation that something happened on set perhaps caused by Baldoni, a clip from the premiere was posted of Baldoni getting asked if he would direct the sequel, to which he responded, “I think there are better people for that one. I think Blake Lively is ready to direct, that’s what I think.” This confirmed that an incident happened between Baldoni and Lively, which would later be backed up by photos and interviews with other cast members such as Jenny Slate, who plays Allysa, dodging a question about working with Baldoni.
In early August Lively released her hair care line, Blake Brown, which she used It Ends With Us to promote. Viewers felt this was insensitive because of the domestic abuse and message of the film. She also has a nonalcoholic beverage brand named Betty Buzz, to which she recently added Betty Booze, a line of sparkling cocktails. This caused controversy because Lively openly doesn’t drink alcohol yet she sells it, as well as naming one of her drinks “Ryle You Wait.” You read that right, she named one of her alcoholic drinks after the abusive male main character in It Ends With Us.
This isn’t the only time she has been caught doing something out of character, she also has had some questionable moments during interviews, such as when she made a hurtful comment towards an interviewer. In 2016, Kjersti Flaa interviewed Lively for Cafe Society saying “Congrats on your little bump!” referring to Lively’s public pregnancy. Lively then snaps back saying “Congrats on your little bump,” taking the Flaa by surprise. After this clip resurfaced Flaa came out and said that English isn’t her native language so she didn’t realize if her comment was hurtful and that during the interview she was dealing with infertility so Lively’s comment hit home.
This isn’t the only time Lively has had a questionable moment in an interview. During the press tour, a question was asked about how Lively would react if a fan came up to her wanting to talk about the movie and have a long conversation about what it meant to them. She responded by saying, “What like asking for my address, or my phone number, or like my location share? I could just location share you and then we could… I’m just a Virgo so are we talking logistics?” As you could imagine, this struck people the wrong way because of the seriousness of the question and how she made it into a joke. In another interview, Armie Hammer commented on how he was fired from Gossip Girl because of Lively complaining about him, this all sparked a resurgence of old interviews with the cast from Gossip Girl where Lively was a so-called “mean girl.”
“Grab your friends and wear your florals,” Lively says in multiple promo videos, framing the film as a light-hearted
romcom which is far from the truth, while the movie does have a romantic aspect it shouldn’t be the main focus point of promotion. Viewers felt Hoover and Lively put too much focus on promoting the movie as something it wasn’t by having a “flower talk” and deciding which flower each character was, as well as Lively changing the poster from Baldonis to hers with Hoover backing her.
Once Lively saw the backlash she was receiving and how much support there was for Baldoni, an article says that he made her uncomfortable and fat-shamed her. Lively stated that during a kiss scene, Baldoni lingered for too long and made her uncomfortable, and on the claim of him fat-shaming her Baldoni had a prior back injury, he asked how much Lively weighed so he could train his back to lift her to not strain his muscles.
All this discussion about drama has overshadowed the true meaning of the film, it could have been a powerful film about domestic violence and how to get help. This is another example of how films have promoted drama to bring attention to films such as Don’t Worry Darling and Anyone But You. I recommend you see the movie to make your own opinion and it’s never too late to get help, so here’s the domestic abuse hotline, 1-800-799-SAFE(7233).
