When creating a piece on such a dark topic like abuse, it is inevitable to bring controversy and offense to some if it is not done or talked about in the right way. You’ve likely heard of the recent dispute on the newly released movie, It Ends With Us. Let’s dive into it! 

For some background, this movie began as a book written by Colleen Hoover in 2016. Hoover is already considered a controversial author in that she writes her story on pretty touchy subjects. She tends to capture her stories well in communicating her strong messages. A year after this book came out, completely unrelated, Justin Baldoni had done a TED talk on toxic masculinity and made an effort to promote some more comfort in the community of speaking out about abuse and leaving toxic situations. When Justin Baldoni came to her wanting to turn her book into a visual movie, she was on board but was very adamant that it had to be done correctly.  Justin Baldoni agreed with this. He has previously done TED talks on toxic masculinity and made an effort to promote some more comfort in the community of speaking out about abuse and leaving toxic situations. The two of them were excited to make this project but were aware of the responsibility they held when creating a movie with such a strong message. Colleen Hoover hired him as the director and they created the It Ends With Us film. Hoover was impressed by Baldoni’s acting in the popular series “Jane the Virgin”. She suggested that he act in the movie as Ryle. 

Now, this is where the drama starts! Justin was the director and main protagonist of the movie. Blake Lively was hired as the main female character as well as a producer in the movie. Creating this film seemed to be smooth sailing. Once the film ended, however, was when the ruckus started. When editing the film, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni did not see eye to eye on how the film should be edited together. In the film, the structure of the events is very important to the message as well as the plot. It builds a vision of Ryle (the abuser) and allows for viewers to build a similar connection that the main character Lily Bloom did. The disagreement continued, but Justin Baldoni got the final say, because he was the director. Blake Lively did not like this, and therefore she brought in Ryan Reynolds to start rewriting scenes. She even got the editor of Deadpool and Wolverine to come and make a cut of the movie she was wanting. This obviously made tensions grow even higher. Blake Lively started to make an attempt to turn cast members against Justin Baldoni in hopes that this would help encourage him to pick her edit of the movie. Regardless, due to his director position he still had the final say and selected his version of the film. This led all of the cast members to unfollow him on Instagram. People didn’t think too much of this until they noticed Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni were never caught promoting the film together. Rumors were created, as they often are in the media, and the idea that Justin made Blake feel uncomfortable on set started to spread. The internet started turning on Baldoni, given that this is hard to disprove. 

However, the media started to turn on Blake Lively as well because they felt as if her promotions of the movie were less about the movie and the message behind it, and more about promoting her own personal brands. The rumors about Justin started to get so out of hand that he hired the same PR manager that represented Johnny Depp in the Amber Heard trial. The internet has split as people are starting to take sides on the issue.