In 2019, news broke that the popular book, It Ends with Us, would be turned into a film produced by Colleen Hoover and adapted from Hoover’s novel. In 2023, they revealed that Blake Lively was going to play the lead role of Lily, and the film was going to be directed by Justin Baldoni who also landed the lead role of Ryle. Hoover said that she thought they both fit the role perfectly. The novel follows Lily as she opens a floral shop in Boston. She meets Ryle, a neurosurgeon, and has a chance encounter in which she reconnects with her high school sweetheart, Atlas Corrigan, while she’s falling for Ryle.
Lively and Baldoni had creative differences about how they should portray the characters. An example would be the fan-favorite rooftop scene that Lively wanted changed. Some said that Lively never even read the book and wanted to change plot points that were in the original novel. Rumors on set said that Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds, meddled and advised roles behind the scenes of the movie. Others also said that even though Baldoni was the director, Lively and Reynolds both hold a lot of power in Hollywood, and Baldoni did not want to make them unhappy, so he had to compromise with them. The movie was successful in the box office, grossing over $350 million worldwide against a budget production of $25 million. According to the box office, the movie made $197,833,816 internally and brought the worldwide tally to $345,833,324.
On Dec. 21, 2024, Lively filed a lawsuit that claimed that Baldoni sexually harassed her on the set of It Ends with Us and mentioned a “slow dance scene” with the actor. This began when Lively went public with the lawsuit in a New York Times article and described how Baldoni tried to ruin her reputation when she voiced her concerns. Baldoni had filed a 400 million dollar countersuit against co-star Lively and her husband for defamation and extortion. He was claiming the actress hijacked the movie he was directing and falsely claimed sexual harassment to bury negative sentiments against her.
Baldoni released a video that is about 10 minutes of footage where he and Lively are having a conversation on screen while they were filming a scene, and it was one of the scenes where Lively said that she was uncomfortable and victimized. The video makes it look bad on her end, but everyone’s reaction was confused to her being uncomfortable and said it looks like she was flirting with Baldoni. There were also screenshots of texts between the actors that are being used as evidence. During the premiere, Lively and Reynolds stated that they were so uncomfortable that they made Baldoni and his family watch the premiere in the basement on a screen. While all of this is going on, Taylor Swift is involved as well. Swift and Lively have been known to be the most famous friends. In the movie trailer, one of Swift’s songs from her album, Folklore, played in the beginning. People said that Swift felt like she was being used as an intimidation tactic by Lively’s lawsuit.
Whether Swift and Lively make up or this represents a permanent change in their friendship, tension continues to rise. While this legal battle remains ongoing, many things are starting to make sense with all the given evidence. Fans are picking sides to this dramatic takeover while also trying to believe all that is happening.
