It Ends with Us really should have been a slam dunk. Based on a novel by Colleen Hoover—a woman who, in 2022, literally outsold the Bible—last year’s film came ready-made with a built-in audience of millions. As a domestic-violence drama, it also walked the walk, rising above Hollywood’s usual empty noise. If star Blake Lively and director (and co-star) Justin Baldoni had played nice and gotten along, the film could have launched a franchise that earned billions.
Obviously, this was not the case. Because now It Ends with Us has been completely overshadowed by all the catastrophic backstage stories—all the feuds and fallouts and creative wrestling and omnidirectional lawsuits—about Lively and Baldoni, which since Christmas have become so deafening that neither of them look set to emerge fully intact.
