It Ends With Us is a bona fide box office hit, having narrowly missed the top spot last weekend thanks to the cinematic superhero juggernaut Deadpool & Wolverine, though in the weekdays since, it has reached No. 1.
Despite its winning numbers, the production and release has been plagued by rumors of a feud, which has apparently led director-producer-star Justin Baldoni to hire a crisis management team. (Somewhere, Olivia Wilde is having flashbacks of her scandal-riddled press tour for Don’t Worry Darling.)
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Stories of an alleged feud between Baldoni and his leading lady Lively popped up when Baldoni didn’t take photos with her or the rest of the cast at the New York premiere on Aug. 6. Turns out, they weren’t even in the same movie theater, with Lively and her guests in one and Baldoni and his guests in another. In fact, they two did no press together for the film, both appearing on separate morning and entertainment shows.
And that certainly doesn’t look good. Which is what the internet thought. That’s when the rumors about tension and creative differences on the set really started churning, with various sources telling various outlets that Baldoni allegedly made Lively “uncomfortable” about her postpartum body on set, that he cultivated an “extremely difficult” work environment for the cast, and that there were two competing cuts of the film.
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According to The Hollywood Reporter, conflicting ideas between filmmakers during post-production resulted in two different edits of the film. The publication also reports that Lively (and Hoover) showed her version of the film in mid-June to some 2,000 attendees at Colleen Hoover’s Book Bonanza outside of Dallas.
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Though Baldoni has praised her in interviews, Lively hasn’t really returned the favor, though she did reserve special praise for another man in her life. At the New York premiere, Lively revealed that her husband — Deadpool himself, Ryan Reynolds — made a major contribution to the film.
“The iconic rooftop scene, my husband actually wrote it. Nobody knows that but you now,” Lively told E! News. “He works on everything I do. I work on everything he does. So his wins, his celebrations are mine, and mine are his.”
And Reynolds and Lively both had reasons to celebrate during the opening weekend of It Ends With Us, as the couple had the No. 1 and No. 2 movies in the world.
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However, as with all scandals, each day brings new revelations. Baldoni has received the lion’s share of questionable press, but Lively is not immune, as proven by a recent dragging the star took for promoting her hair care line on the back of It Ends With Us, a movie about domestic violence. A source exclusively tells EW that the launch of Lively’s Blake Brown in Target stores was never meant to coincide with the release of the film, which was originally supposed to open in June.
Lively has also been criticized for a promotional video where she encouraged women to “grab your friends, wear your florals” and go see the movie, which felt out of touch given the film’s bigger themes of abuse and survival.
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Lively and Reynolds are married and apparently she had their second child just prior to filming deadpool. At least that’s what some movie review noted on behalf of said line.