Despite it being release in August of 2024, the discourse surrounding It Ends With Us (which is streaming with a Netflix subscription) is still ongoing. This is largely thanks to the legal battle associated with the movie, which began when Blake Lively sued Wayfarer Studios for alleged inappropriate behavior on the set. And as the back and forth continues, newly released texts claim that the Gossip Girl star had control of the movie's sex scenes and more.
After Lively filed her complaint, Justin Baldoni countersued for defamation, and alleged that she was trying to take over creative control of the drama film. Business Insider recently shared unsealed documents related to the case, specifically texts between editor Robb Sullivan, co-editor Oona Flaherty and another unnamed crew member. In these messages, Flaherty asks about the editing in a sex scene, where another person given the name "Henry Grace" claims:
That's gonna end up being a Blake call honestly. If you can get her to keep it in and it's in the movie when I get back it can stay in.
While some crew members have refuted claims about Justin Baldoni, these new texts offer another perspective on what was happening in the midst of editing It Ends With Us. And they might offer some support for the director's allegations that Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds tried to take creative control over the book to movie adaptation.
This text exchange was actually in reference to a sex scene that Lively wasn't apart of. Instead, it was a flashback, where a younger version of her character sleeps with a young Atlas. During this conversation Grace writes:
When she claimed she was unsafe- she redid the nudity rider to get approval of young Lilly too.
After this, both of the editors share their disapproval of this, including a quick "SMH" from Sullivan. So while Justin Baldoni's defamation case was tossed out, this offers a picture of how crew members seemingly viewed Lively behind the scenes.
There were previously reports bout Lively controlling her wardrobe for the movie, which allegedly snowballed the budget. Additionally, there's been reports of she and Reynolds rewriting scenes. Later in the same text conversation, Grace offered another allegation about her allegedly wanting control of It Ends With Us. They shared with the editors:
Because she wasn't a part of writing that sex scene. And din't want a character depicting her to have sex in High School. Honestly- it's all about control so she could get to where she will be next week. All good.
Well, they certainly didn't mince their words. This group chat seems to be anti-Lively, although none of the editors named have offered any official statement about the unsealed documents.
As previously mentioned, Lively scored a major legal victory when Baldoni's defamation case was tossed out. But updates like this show that the discourse surrounding It Ends With Us is far from over.
It Ends With Us is streaming on Netflix, and Lively has a number of upcoming projects coming down the line, albeit without release dates. As for Baldoni, he's seemingly got nothing lined up at the point of writing this story, on the 2025 movie release list or beyond.
