The cast of It Ends With Us was reportedly fully on the side of Blake Lively in her issues with director Justin Baldoni, with a new report from THR alleging the cast wouldn’t promote the movie unless Lively’s cut of the film was used.
What do we know about the argument over the It Ends With Us final cut?
In a new report from THR detailing even more of the breakdown between Lively and Baldoni, it was reported that both parties began editing their own cuts of the film in April 2024. Although both parties had made final cuts to the film, Lively referred to her own cut as “Sony’s cut,” something Baldoni and Wayfarer contend against.
In the end, THR reports, the back-and-forth over final cut ended up not mattering too much, as the cast of It Ends With Us ended up siding with Lively. The report notes that, by June 2024, Sony had contacted Wayfarer and let them know that neither Lively nor any of the cast members would help in promoting the film unless Lively’s cut was the one used, according to Baldoni’s complaint.
Baldoni alleges that he was forced to either acquiesce and “fire himself” as director, or kill the film entirely.
Lively’s initial complaint alleges that Baldoni created a hostile work environment
All of this stems from a formal complaint that Lively made against Baldoni in December. In it, she states that things got so bad during the filming of It Ends With Us that an all-hands-on-deck meeting was called in response to her claims of a hostile work environment. During the meeting, Lively asked that Baldoni stop showing her nude videos or images of women, that he stop mentioning his pornography addiction to her, that Baldoni stop discussing sexual experiences in front of her, and that he also stop mentioning Lively’s weight.
The complaint also claims that an agreement was made between production company Wayfarer Studios and the cast in which the promotion of the movie would focus “more on [Lively’s character’s] strength and resilience as opposed to describing the film as a story about domestic violence.” However, Lively claims that Baldoni would renege on that and instead spoke in interviews about the film’s serious story.
Lively also claimed that Baldoni and his PR manager, Melissa Nathan, discussed ways to start a social media campaign to harm her reputation. The filing by Lively includes 22 pages of texts between Baldoni’s publicist and Nathan, in which they discuss wanting to have Lively “buried.”
