you thought it was over? too bad, the 'It Ends With Us' drama refuses to fizzle out
‘It Ends With Us’ Crew Members Say Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively’s Creative Differences Were Not a Secret on Set
Report: https://t.co/SuPtn47v20 pic.twitter.com/KtfuVwNgH7
- Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) August 28, 2024
• Just yesterday Variety published a new piece on It Ends With Us that questioned whether Ryan Reynolds' unapproved and unasked for rewrites coincided with the writers strike. The new details that emerged suggest that director Justin Baldoni had thought that Lively ad-libbed new lines during the scenes, but found out at the premiere that Reynolds had re-written the scene. The film's screenwriter Christy Hall, was also informed of that new detail at the red carpet as well.
• But the Variety piece buried the lede. They revealed that Baldoni and his studio, Wayfarer Studios, holds the rights to the sequel novel, It Starts With Us. Baldoni secured the rights to both novels well before the BookTok rallied behind the books and a source with knowledge of the deal says that he, "is the sole party who can determine its fate." This seems to rub against the amount of credit that Lively claimed in the promotion of the movie.
• And now Rolling Stone is here to stir the drama up some more, but the crew members they interviewed all basically say that it all boiled down, "to a mismatch of creative approaches and personalities."
• The four month production was "on-again, off-again" according to these crew members, and during that time "they observed Lively and Baldoni's contrasting approaches to filmmaking and noted a shift in Lively's attitude while making the project." Lively and Baldoni largely avoided each other on set unless absolutely necessary.
• One of the crew members tells RS, "Everyone knew that they didn't like each other. I think some of the rumors online seem a little strong. I don't think they hate each other. But I don't think they would work together again. Their styles are way too different. Blake is very business-minded and very practical. Justin...is so on the other side of why he makes art that they were never going to be friends."
• A crew member says, “there were such conflicting ideas of how to make the movie, and since Blake was bankrolling it, Justin couldn’t really put his foot down. But also he didn’t really have a strong opinion. He’s very good at directing actors and he’s good at acting, he’s an actor’s director, but as far as the direction of the entire picture goes, I don’t think it was his sort of film.”
• These crew members note that Lively was very excited at the beginning, "bringing in scrapbooks of ideas and notes regarding the details of her character's wardrobe and set decorations."
• Lively's vision of how to dress her character, Lily Bloom, conflicted with the ideas of the film's costume designers. A crew member says, "we went dark because of picket lines and [in that time] the costume department was running around with their heads cut off trying to figure out how they could change everything to make sure Blake was happy. There were a lot of returns, exchanges, and repurchasing of an entire wardrobe."
• Another crew member alleges that the film's production designer was "put on the spot" when Lively asked to change the initial plan for her character's flower store in the film. The original set was apparently "almost Gothic" to give the movie an appropriately "moody vibe" but Lively wanted a new spin to better fit her idea of the character's style. The production designer did not respond to Rolling Stone's requests for a comment.
• All three crew members interviewed say that Lively often had schedule conflicts, and that after paparazzi photos of her on set in costume were leaked to the press, "her passion for the project seemed to drop off precipitously." One crew member even said, "there was lots of talk about, if this wasn't contractually obligated she probably would have just scrapped the whole thing."
• The same crew member does say that Baldoni was "inexperienced with running a big crew" while Lively was treating it, "like a bigger production than it was...after she stopped caring, she didn't care about anything about the shoot...Normally that wouldn't be that big of a deal, a lot of actors are like that, but she was so invested in the beginning and then the more she and Justin interacted, the less she cared about it."
• Union members picketed the New Jersey set, production was halted when some cast and crew members caught COVID. In June 2023 smoke from Canadian wildfires also disrupted filming, and then the writers strike shut the production down for the rest of the year. It didn't start up again until January 2024 before wrapping in February. The crew members say that this also dragged out the professional tension between Baldoni and Lively.
• Crew members note that both were "civil" about their disagreements, with both throwing in their own two cents on problems.
• Another crew member says, "I feel like a lot of the things you’re seeing online makes it sound like it was a hostile work environment and it wasn’t in any way, shape, or form. Everybody was very professional. Everyone was nice. They didn’t yell at each other. There was no, like, ‘Oh, Mom and Dad have to go behind a closed door and yell at each other.’ Nothing like that happened.”
• The crew members say Baldoni tried to foster a "warm environment" of support between above the line and below the line members of the crew, and was very amicable. One of the crew members says, "he was much more personable and available than pretty much any other director and certainly any other lead actor that I've worked with." But still, the crew members did see him as a "green director" with only two features under his belt. They say he was "out of his depth"
• One of the crew members says, "there’s two types of directors: There’s the ones that want control over every little thing - they choose every color, choose every costume, all that - and then there are directors that hire people they trust and they spend all their time in rehearsal and in front of the camera dealing with actors. Justin was very much the latter...He just hired people that he trusted, but Blake really wanted to have her fingers in every little thing, which is fine, she’s executive producer. No one was upset by that. But I think she was kind of taken aback by how sort of laissez-faire Justin was.”
• One of the crew members, who Rolling Stone notes is a 20 year veteran on sets, says that working directly with Lviely, "was fine. We'll leave it at that. It was a fine shoot. Every production I've worked on has its cast of characters, and you know, it is what it is. It's all good."
• The crew members do feel that the "clash" between Baldoni and Lively took on a new life after the premiere thanks to fan speculation and press coverage caused the situation to spiral.
• They say that it distracted from the movie's message, one that they say Baldoni emphasized the importance of during the shoot. One crew member says, "I understood that he had a lot of weight on his shoulders that he was carrying. He was always reminding us that aside from the fact that we were trying to make the best possible product, we had an obligation to do the victims of domestic violence justice by telling their story in a way that was respectful and accurate, by shining a light on it. He was always reminding us that this movie has the potential to change lives."
• The crew members emphasize that the "drama" is merely all creatively driven between a novice director and an actress/producer who lost interest, and that everyone looking for deeper drama won't find it.
tl;dr? they're both children
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