After starring and directing It Ends With Us, Justin Baldoni is not looking to repeat double duty in a potential film sequel.
“You’re gonna have to ask me in a little while. We’re gonna take a vacation after this,” Baldoni, 40, quipped to Entertainment Tonight at the Tuesday, August 6, red carpet premiere in New York City.
It Ends With Us, adapted from Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel of the same name, follows florist Lily Bloom (Blake Lively) as she enters into an abusive relationship with neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Baldoni). Amid their tumultuous relationship, Lily’s first love, Atlas Corrigan (Brandon Sklenar), reappears in her life. It Ends With Us spawned an It Starts With Us sequel in 2022 that takes place years after the OG book.
Should It Starts With Us be adapted for the screen, Baldoni knows who should direct it.
Colleen Hoover’s 2016 bestselling novel It Ends With Us is officially being adapted for the big screen – with Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni taking center stage. Released in 2016, It Ends With Us became a social media cultural phenomenon and was the top-selling print book of 2022. The novel remained on The New York […]
“I think there are better people for that one,” he quipped on Tuesday. “I think Blake Lively is ready to direct. That’s what I think.”
The Gossip Girl alum made her directorial debut with her best friend Taylor Swift’s “I Bet You Think About Me” music video in 2021, which earned Lively an ACM nomination.
Back in front of the cameras, Hoover, 44, thought Baldoni and Lively, 36, were the “dream” versions of the It Ends With Us characters.
“Blake Lively, y’all. She’s my dream Lily,” Hoover gushed via Instagram in January 2023. “And then when I first met Justin Baldoni, who is directing the film for It Ends With Us, I immediately wanted him to be Ryle. I just thought that he had what it takes to play that character, and the good news is he’s gonna be Ryle.”
Blake Lively’s fresh floral style during the It Ends With Us tour has taken over the internet — and we can’t get enough. While promoting It Ends With Us, which hits theaters on Friday, August 9, Lively has taken inspiration from her character, florist Lily Bloom, and rocked a number of flower-embellished designs, including vibrant […]
It Ends With Us was inspired by Hoover’s family history of domestic abuse, which weighed on Baldoni during the entire shoot.
“There were a lot of times where I would have to go privately into a room and just cry or shake it out and try to get him out of me and that energy out of me,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in a Wednesday, August 7, profile. “Because it’s too real.”
He added, “There are too many people that are the real-life Lily Blooms of the world that have to deal with that every single day, and I wanted it to be as real as possible and yet it was very hard to shoot those scenes.”
It Ends With Us debuts in theaters on Friday, August 9.
