Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

Her hair is dry af. Those comments aren’t wrong.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m really curious how this movie made so much money. It’s currently grossed over $350 million, which is a crazy amount for a domestic violence film. Baldwin has come nowhere close to these numbers — Five Feet Apart grossed 45 million but Clouds grossed far less, I can’t even find real numbers but maybe only $2 million? Lively’s A Simple Favor (I) with Kendrick grossed about $100 million. I don’t think Hoover’s ever come close to this before. Was the success in fact from all the controversy? Was Reynold’s promotion firm really successful here? $350 million is a lot of viewers.

Maybe this was the plan all along, sort of reverse psychology. Even negative attention is better than no attention.

No,no. You guys are missing that Colleen Hoover‘s book was hugely popular. People have been waiting for this movie to be made for years and there was a lot of attention on it as soon as it was announced. She has a ginormous fan base. Another one of her books, verity, is being made with Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett, and Dakota Johnson.

I personally don’t understand the popularity of the books, but she is a huge deal. This was a really covered role that Blake scored.

Sorry, should say coveted role.

I mean, okay, but Come. On. Three past Hoover books have been made into movies: Ugly Love, Confess, and Maybe Someday, and none of them have made anywhere near this much money. I don't think I've heard of them, even. Not that fans may not have been looking out for this one, particularly, but are you really saying that would get the movie to $350M? I think It Ends With Us sold one or two million last year - that's not really getting into the half-of-a-Marvel-movie where the film's gross wound up, as far as I'm aware.

Anne Hathaway is an Oscar winner. SHe has her pick of any roles. The fact that she’s doing verity means these movies are going to be seen. I think you are really over estimating Blake here and really underestimating the machine that is Colleen Hoover.

It's being made by Amazon studios, though, and it's not yet clear if it's getting a theater release. It may be streaming only. Hathaway's last movie (The Idea of You) was a streaming-only feature on Prime, and she also was one of the big names who did an episode of their Modern Love series a few years ago (Tina Fey also did an episode, there were other A-list type people in it). She also starred in that WeCrashed series about the WeWork people -- I don't think that was Amazon though, maybe Max? Still a streaming product.

Streaming makes it much harder to evaluate the market for actor's box office power these days. Lots of big stars do streaming-only movies and limited series these days, and the streamers spend HUGE money on those productions right now, so it can be quite lucrative for the creators involved. But unlike a film with a theater release, you never get the kind of clear numbers with streaming products -- the streamers don't even release a transparent list of top streamed shows or movies (they release these partial lists but it's often not even clear what they represent because there are lots of ways to count something as "viewed" that don't necessarily equate to a ticket sale in a movie theater).

All of which is not to say that Colleen Hoover is not a lucrative product right now -- obviously she's having a moment and studios like that her book adaptations have a build in audience. In fact the success of IEWU actually makes it more likely that Verity will get a theater release of some kind. But I also think you can argue that IEWU outperformed expectations even knowing it was a popular Hoover book with a decent following. One thing I will note is that international box office accounted for over 200m of its box office -- that's huge. I think Hoover might have a decent following in Europe, but also Lively went out of her way to go promote the film in London (attended the London premiere in person and paid for Ferrer to accompany her to it on Lively's own dime -- not sure if Lively also paid for her own travel/lodging for that premiere as well). I think you can argue that Lively played an important role in the success of the movie given it's international success, because of her willingness to go the extra mile on the promotional tour and also because of her recognizability to an international audience thanks to both Gossip Girl and her association with Reynolds. She's also a fashion darling and may receive more pressing Europe because of that -- her relationship with Vogue and certain designers (including Versace who did a lot of her clothes for the promotional tour for IEWU) is pretty well known among people interested in fashion.

She’s a fashion nightmare but ok

PP here and I personally don't like her style but that's beside the point. She's got good relationships with designers and fashion editors including a really good relationship with Vogue. She did the Vogue cover in September to coincide with the release of IEWU (the September issue comes out in August, and also is considered the most important issue of the year so the cover is a big get). She's hosted the Met Gala more than once and tends to be more involved and get better reviews than most celebrity hosts. She is a frequent front row guest at both Paris and New York fashion weeks and has attended Paris FW with Anna Wintour which is a weird special honor that tends to go to this very small group of actresses who Wintour dotes on (Emma Stone would be another actress in this group).

I find her personal fashion kind of obvious BUT it's true she famously does not work with a stylist and that she generally looks great on red carpets, which means she does know something because that's really hard to do -- not just because it requires understanding what looks good and how to put the whole look together, but it's also a logistics challenge because it means she has to have the relationships directly with designers and know how to manage the kind of political/interpersonal aspect of it which is more complicated than you might realize.

All of which is to say that Lively has some special attributes as an actress that would make her especially appealing from a box office standpoint for a movie with a primarily female audience in the 18-35 and 35-50 demographics -- those overlap perfectly with the audience for fashion content whether you are talking about Vogue magazine or In Style or just people who pay close attention to fashion blogs and red carpet events. And given IEWU's international box office, I would bet that her willingness to go abroad to promote the movie, to wear big name fashion and do red carpet events in London where it's going to get picked up by European fashion press who are already very familiar with her, translates to actual money for the studio in a very real way. Ever magazine article, blog post, and social media photo of Lively wearing big name fashion on a red carpet while promoting the movie is worth a lot of exposure that it could be hard to get with another actress. It's real value she brings to the project.

I mean, sure if you like tons of gaudy bangles and large chunky earrings, and colorful mismatched prints. It’s trying a little too hard and outdated but whatever floats your boat. With the huge hair, huge white teeth, huge silicone breasts…less is probably more. She’s like her bff TS, far from a style icon. This is partly why I fail to see Europeans following her, as they tend to have more sophisticated low key style generally.

Lol to the idea that Europeans as a group have "sophisticated, low key" style. American fashion is much more stripped down and low key when compared to what comes out of Europe, with the excess of the couture houses as well as all the avant garde fashion that comes out of London/Paris/Copenhagen. European fashion is not low key at all. Sophistication is in the eye of the beholder.

Europeans in general are not wearing avant garde high fashion couture on the daily.

You are really missing the point. It doesn't matter what Europeans wear daily. The point is that Lively will get quite a bit of press in Europe by showing up to events there and wearing designers like Stella McCartney and Tamara Ralph. Her outfit for the London premier got a ton of play in the fashion/celebrity press both in the UK/EU and in the US because it was eye popping and beautiful -- it made for a very pretty picture which makes it easy for photo editors to grab it and use it because it will attract eyeballs.

I'm sure there are plenty of Europeans who would roll their eyes at it and never wear anything like it (or the oversized white McCartney suit she wore as well) and find it tacky. I find it tacky! But Lively understands the fashion world and the fashion press and she definitely worked that knowledge to the best of her ability to sell this movie, which might be why it over performed at the box office so much.

Blake Lively is not a fashion or style inspiration at all, and she does not get excellent fashion press unlike - to step away from the very young - Ayo Edebiri, Greta Lee, Lupita N’yongo, Saiorse Ronan for big events, to elder stateswomen like Julianne Moore and Kidman and Swinton and Blanchett each of whom still kill it from time to time. She’s blowsy and unfinished and poorly edited and a mess and the film was a semi-smash because of a built in following of the author more than much else.

People criticized her dry hair as her line was released because an ad she presumably approved had her looking less than glossy and amazing. Article is August 1, 2024. She has always had the sh!t press that her even worse character deserves. She wasn’t surprised by it - she was mad. Different thing entirely.

Hope you are not this judgy with your friend’s fashion choices …

[Anonymous]

We could speculate for hours. It was probably a combination that led to lightning in a bottle.

Blake’s last film was the Rythym section which has the distinction of being the bomb in the history of cinematic releases. Despite a powerhouse producer and a very popular director. And Jude Law and Sterling K Brown who has blown up already from the this is us show.

Shrug. No one rely knows.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m really curious how this movie made so much money. It’s currently grossed over $350 million, which is a crazy amount for a domestic violence film. Baldwin has come nowhere close to these numbers — Five Feet Apart grossed 45 million but Clouds grossed far less, I can’t even find real numbers but maybe only $2 million? Lively’s A Simple Favor (I) with Kendrick grossed about $100 million. I don’t think Hoover’s ever come close to this before. Was the success in fact from all the controversy? Was Reynold’s promotion firm really successful here? $350 million is a lot of viewers.

Maybe this was the plan all along, sort of reverse psychology. Even negative attention is better than no attention.

No,no. You guys are missing that Colleen Hoover‘s book was hugely popular. People have been waiting for this movie to be made for years and there was a lot of attention on it as soon as it was announced. She has a ginormous fan base. Another one of her books, verity, is being made with Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett, and Dakota Johnson.

I personally don’t understand the popularity of the books, but she is a huge deal. This was a really covered role that Blake scored.

Sorry, should say coveted role.

I mean, okay, but Come. On. Three past Hoover books have been made into movies: Ugly Love, Confess, and Maybe Someday, and none of them have made anywhere near this much money. I don't think I've heard of them, even. Not that fans may not have been looking out for this one, particularly, but are you really saying that would get the movie to $350M? I think It Ends With Us sold one or two million last year - that's not really getting into the half-of-a-Marvel-movie where the film's gross wound up, as far as I'm aware.

Anne Hathaway is an Oscar winner. SHe has her pick of any roles. The fact that she’s doing verity means these movies are going to be seen. I think you are really over estimating Blake here and really underestimating the machine that is Colleen Hoover.

It's being made by Amazon studios, though, and it's not yet clear if it's getting a theater release. It may be streaming only. Hathaway's last movie (The Idea of You) was a streaming-only feature on Prime, and she also was one of the big names who did an episode of their Modern Love series a few years ago (Tina Fey also did an episode, there were other A-list type people in it). She also starred in that WeCrashed series about the WeWork people -- I don't think that was Amazon though, maybe Max? Still a streaming product.

Streaming makes it much harder to evaluate the market for actor's box office power these days. Lots of big stars do streaming-only movies and limited series these days, and the streamers spend HUGE money on those productions right now, so it can be quite lucrative for the creators involved. But unlike a film with a theater release, you never get the kind of clear numbers with streaming products -- the streamers don't even release a transparent list of top streamed shows or movies (they release these partial lists but it's often not even clear what they represent because there are lots of ways to count something as "viewed" that don't necessarily equate to a ticket sale in a movie theater).

All of which is not to say that Colleen Hoover is not a lucrative product right now -- obviously she's having a moment and studios like that her book adaptations have a build in audience. In fact the success of IEWU actually makes it more likely that Verity will get a theater release of some kind. But I also think you can argue that IEWU outperformed expectations even knowing it was a popular Hoover book with a decent following. One thing I will note is that international box office accounted for over 200m of its box office -- that's huge. I think Hoover might have a decent following in Europe, but also Lively went out of her way to go promote the film in London (attended the London premiere in person and paid for Ferrer to accompany her to it on Lively's own dime -- not sure if Lively also paid for her own travel/lodging for that premiere as well). I think you can argue that Lively played an important role in the success of the movie given it's international success, because of her willingness to go the extra mile on the promotional tour and also because of her recognizability to an international audience thanks to both Gossip Girl and her association with Reynolds. She's also a fashion darling and may receive more pressing Europe because of that -- her relationship with Vogue and certain designers (including Versace who did a lot of her clothes for the promotional tour for IEWU) is pretty well known among people interested in fashion.

She’s a fashion nightmare but ok

PP here and I personally don't like her style but that's beside the point. She's got good relationships with designers and fashion editors including a really good relationship with Vogue. She did the Vogue cover in September to coincide with the release of IEWU (the September issue comes out in August, and also is considered the most important issue of the year so the cover is a big get). She's hosted the Met Gala more than once and tends to be more involved and get better reviews than most celebrity hosts. She is a frequent front row guest at both Paris and New York fashion weeks and has attended Paris FW with Anna Wintour which is a weird special honor that tends to go to this very small group of actresses who Wintour dotes on (Emma Stone would be another actress in this group).

I find her personal fashion kind of obvious BUT it's true she famously does not work with a stylist and that she generally looks great on red carpets, which means she does know something because that's really hard to do -- not just because it requires understanding what looks good and how to put the whole look together, but it's also a logistics challenge because it means she has to have the relationships directly with designers and know how to manage the kind of political/interpersonal aspect of it which is more complicated than you might realize.

All of which is to say that Lively has some special attributes as an actress that would make her especially appealing from a box office standpoint for a movie with a primarily female audience in the 18-35 and 35-50 demographics -- those overlap perfectly with the audience for fashion content whether you are talking about Vogue magazine or In Style or just people who pay close attention to fashion blogs and red carpet events. And given IEWU's international box office, I would bet that her willingness to go abroad to promote the movie, to wear big name fashion and do red carpet events in London where it's going to get picked up by European fashion press who are already very familiar with her, translates to actual money for the studio in a very real way. Ever magazine article, blog post, and social media photo of Lively wearing big name fashion on a red carpet while promoting the movie is worth a lot of exposure that it could be hard to get with another actress. It's real value she brings to the project.

I mean, sure if you like tons of gaudy bangles and large chunky earrings, and colorful mismatched prints. It’s trying a little too hard and outdated but whatever floats your boat. With the huge hair, huge white teeth, huge silicone breasts…less is probably more. She’s like her bff TS, far from a style icon. This is partly why I fail to see Europeans following her, as they tend to have more sophisticated low key style generally.

Lol to the idea that Europeans as a group have "sophisticated, low key" style. American fashion is much more stripped down and low key when compared to what comes out of Europe, with the excess of the couture houses as well as all the avant garde fashion that comes out of London/Paris/Copenhagen. European fashion is not low key at all. Sophistication is in the eye of the beholder.

Europeans in general are not wearing avant garde high fashion couture on the daily.

You are really missing the point. It doesn't matter what Europeans wear daily. The point is that Lively will get quite a bit of press in Europe by showing up to events there and wearing designers like Stella McCartney and Tamara Ralph. Her outfit for the London premier got a ton of play in the fashion/celebrity press both in the UK/EU and in the US because it was eye popping and beautiful -- it made for a very pretty picture which makes it easy for photo editors to grab it and use it because it will attract eyeballs.

I'm sure there are plenty of Europeans who would roll their eyes at it and never wear anything like it (or the oversized white McCartney suit she wore as well) and find it tacky. I find it tacky! But Lively understands the fashion world and the fashion press and she definitely worked that knowledge to the best of her ability to sell this movie, which might be why it over performed at the box office so much.

Blake needs a stylist asap, but her bad sense of style is a type of karma, so just let it go.

Not that I understand fashion but what on earth does the bolder mean?

Is anything really bad taste anymore? In RL for sure but celebrities and pop musicians get away with some really bizarre outfits.

She was fat in her SNL corset, and all the slap and veneers and piles of jewelry make it all worse.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m really curious how this movie made so much money. It’s currently grossed over $350 million, which is a crazy amount for a domestic violence film. Baldwin has come nowhere close to these numbers — Five Feet Apart grossed 45 million but Clouds grossed far less, I can’t even find real numbers but maybe only $2 million? Lively’s A Simple Favor (I) with Kendrick grossed about $100 million. I don’t think Hoover’s ever come close to this before. Was the success in fact from all the controversy? Was Reynold’s promotion firm really successful here? $350 million is a lot of viewers.

Maybe this was the plan all along, sort of reverse psychology. Even negative attention is better than no attention.

No,no. You guys are missing that Colleen Hoover‘s book was hugely popular. People have been waiting for this movie to be made for years and there was a lot of attention on it as soon as it was announced. She has a ginormous fan base. Another one of her books, verity, is being made with Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett, and Dakota Johnson.

I personally don’t understand the popularity of the books, but she is a huge deal. This was a really covered role that Blake scored.

Sorry, should say coveted role.

I mean, okay, but Come. On. Three past Hoover books have been made into movies: Ugly Love, Confess, and Maybe Someday, and none of them have made anywhere near this much money. I don't think I've heard of them, even. Not that fans may not have been looking out for this one, particularly, but are you really saying that would get the movie to $350M? I think It Ends With Us sold one or two million last year - that's not really getting into the half-of-a-Marvel-movie where the film's gross wound up, as far as I'm aware.

Anne Hathaway is an Oscar winner. SHe has her pick of any roles. The fact that she’s doing verity means these movies are going to be seen. I think you are really over estimating Blake here and really underestimating the machine that is Colleen Hoover.

It's being made by Amazon studios, though, and it's not yet clear if it's getting a theater release. It may be streaming only. Hathaway's last movie (The Idea of You) was a streaming-only feature on Prime, and she also was one of the big names who did an episode of their Modern Love series a few years ago (Tina Fey also did an episode, there were other A-list type people in it). She also starred in that WeCrashed series about the WeWork people -- I don't think that was Amazon though, maybe Max? Still a streaming product.

Streaming makes it much harder to evaluate the market for actor's box office power these days. Lots of big stars do streaming-only movies and limited series these days, and the streamers spend HUGE money on those productions right now, so it can be quite lucrative for the creators involved. But unlike a film with a theater release, you never get the kind of clear numbers with streaming products -- the streamers don't even release a transparent list of top streamed shows or movies (they release these partial lists but it's often not even clear what they represent because there are lots of ways to count something as "viewed" that don't necessarily equate to a ticket sale in a movie theater).

All of which is not to say that Colleen Hoover is not a lucrative product right now -- obviously she's having a moment and studios like that her book adaptations have a build in audience. In fact the success of IEWU actually makes it more likely that Verity will get a theater release of some kind. But I also think you can argue that IEWU outperformed expectations even knowing it was a popular Hoover book with a decent following. One thing I will note is that international box office accounted for over 200m of its box office -- that's huge. I think Hoover might have a decent following in Europe, but also Lively went out of her way to go promote the film in London (attended the London premiere in person and paid for Ferrer to accompany her to it on Lively's own dime -- not sure if Lively also paid for her own travel/lodging for that premiere as well). I think you can argue that Lively played an important role in the success of the movie given it's international success, because of her willingness to go the extra mile on the promotional tour and also because of her recognizability to an international audience thanks to both Gossip Girl and her association with Reynolds. She's also a fashion darling and may receive more pressing Europe because of that -- her relationship with Vogue and certain designers (including Versace who did a lot of her clothes for the promotional tour for IEWU) is pretty well known among people interested in fashion.

She’s a fashion nightmare but ok

PP here and I personally don't like her style but that's beside the point. She's got good relationships with designers and fashion editors including a really good relationship with Vogue. She did the Vogue cover in September to coincide with the release of IEWU (the September issue comes out in August, and also is considered the most important issue of the year so the cover is a big get). She's hosted the Met Gala more than once and tends to be more involved and get better reviews than most celebrity hosts. She is a frequent front row guest at both Paris and New York fashion weeks and has attended Paris FW with Anna Wintour which is a weird special honor that tends to go to this very small group of actresses who Wintour dotes on (Emma Stone would be another actress in this group).

I find her personal fashion kind of obvious BUT it's true she famously does not work with a stylist and that she generally looks great on red carpets, which means she does know something because that's really hard to do -- not just because it requires understanding what looks good and how to put the whole look together, but it's also a logistics challenge because it means she has to have the relationships directly with designers and know how to manage the kind of political/interpersonal aspect of it which is more complicated than you might realize.

All of which is to say that Lively has some special attributes as an actress that would make her especially appealing from a box office standpoint for a movie with a primarily female audience in the 18-35 and 35-50 demographics -- those overlap perfectly with the audience for fashion content whether you are talking about Vogue magazine or In Style or just people who pay close attention to fashion blogs and red carpet events. And given IEWU's international box office, I would bet that her willingness to go abroad to promote the movie, to wear big name fashion and do red carpet events in London where it's going to get picked up by European fashion press who are already very familiar with her, translates to actual money for the studio in a very real way. Ever magazine article, blog post, and social media photo of Lively wearing big name fashion on a red carpet while promoting the movie is worth a lot of exposure that it could be hard to get with another actress. It's real value she brings to the project.

I mean, sure if you like tons of gaudy bangles and large chunky earrings, and colorful mismatched prints. It’s trying a little too hard and outdated but whatever floats your boat. With the huge hair, huge white teeth, huge silicone breasts…less is probably more. She’s like her bff TS, far from a style icon. This is partly why I fail to see Europeans following her, as they tend to have more sophisticated low key style generally.

Lol to the idea that Europeans as a group have "sophisticated, low key" style. American fashion is much more stripped down and low key when compared to what comes out of Europe, with the excess of the couture houses as well as all the avant garde fashion that comes out of London/Paris/Copenhagen. European fashion is not low key at all. Sophistication is in the eye of the beholder.

Europeans in general are not wearing avant garde high fashion couture on the daily.

You are really missing the point. It doesn't matter what Europeans wear daily. The point is that Lively will get quite a bit of press in Europe by showing up to events there and wearing designers like Stella McCartney and Tamara Ralph. Her outfit for the London premier got a ton of play in the fashion/celebrity press both in the UK/EU and in the US because it was eye popping and beautiful -- it made for a very pretty picture which makes it easy for photo editors to grab it and use it because it will attract eyeballs.

I'm sure there are plenty of Europeans who would roll their eyes at it and never wear anything like it (or the oversized white McCartney suit she wore as well) and find it tacky. I find it tacky! But Lively understands the fashion world and the fashion press and she definitely worked that knowledge to the best of her ability to sell this movie, which might be why it over performed at the box office so much.

Blake Lively is not a fashion or style inspiration at all, and she does not get excellent fashion press unlike - to step away from the very young - Ayo Edebiri, Greta Lee, Lupita N’yongo, Saiorse Ronan for big events, to elder stateswomen like Julianne Moore and Kidman and Swinton and Blanchett each of whom still kill it from time to time. She’s blowsy and unfinished and poorly edited and a mess and the film was a semi-smash because of a built in following of the author more than much else.

People criticized her dry hair as her line was released because an ad she presumably approved had her looking less than glossy and amazing. Article is August 1, 2024. She has always had the sh!t press that her even worse character deserves. She wasn’t surprised by it - she was mad. Different thing entirely.

Hope you are not this judgy with your friend’s fashion choices …

My friends accept their size and don’t wear ten rings on each hand. She is giving last days of Vegas showgirl 24/7. She’ll be on ozempic and giving In Touch divorce exclusives by 2027.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m really curious how this movie made so much money. It’s currently grossed over $350 million, which is a crazy amount for a domestic violence film. Baldwin has come nowhere close to these numbers — Five Feet Apart grossed 45 million but Clouds grossed far less, I can’t even find real numbers but maybe only $2 million? Lively’s A Simple Favor (I) with Kendrick grossed about $100 million. I don’t think Hoover’s ever come close to this before. Was the success in fact from all the controversy? Was Reynold’s promotion firm really successful here? $350 million is a lot of viewers.

Maybe this was the plan all along, sort of reverse psychology. Even negative attention is better than no attention.

No,no. You guys are missing that Colleen Hoover‘s book was hugely popular. People have been waiting for this movie to be made for years and there was a lot of attention on it as soon as it was announced. She has a ginormous fan base. Another one of her books, verity, is being made with Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett, and Dakota Johnson.

I personally don’t understand the popularity of the books, but she is a huge deal. This was a really covered role that Blake scored.

Sorry, should say coveted role.

I mean, okay, but Come. On. Three past Hoover books have been made into movies: Ugly Love, Confess, and Maybe Someday, and none of them have made anywhere near this much money. I don't think I've heard of them, even. Not that fans may not have been looking out for this one, particularly, but are you really saying that would get the movie to $350M? I think It Ends With Us sold one or two million last year - that's not really getting into the half-of-a-Marvel-movie where the film's gross wound up, as far as I'm aware.

Anne Hathaway is an Oscar winner. SHe has her pick of any roles. The fact that she’s doing verity means these movies are going to be seen. I think you are really over estimating Blake here and really underestimating the machine that is Colleen Hoover.

It's being made by Amazon studios, though, and it's not yet clear if it's getting a theater release. It may be streaming only. Hathaway's last movie (The Idea of You) was a streaming-only feature on Prime, and she also was one of the big names who did an episode of their Modern Love series a few years ago (Tina Fey also did an episode, there were other A-list type people in it). She also starred in that WeCrashed series about the WeWork people -- I don't think that was Amazon though, maybe Max? Still a streaming product.

Streaming makes it much harder to evaluate the market for actor's box office power these days. Lots of big stars do streaming-only movies and limited series these days, and the streamers spend HUGE money on those productions right now, so it can be quite lucrative for the creators involved. But unlike a film with a theater release, you never get the kind of clear numbers with streaming products -- the streamers don't even release a transparent list of top streamed shows or movies (they release these partial lists but it's often not even clear what they represent because there are lots of ways to count something as "viewed" that don't necessarily equate to a ticket sale in a movie theater).

All of which is not to say that Colleen Hoover is not a lucrative product right now -- obviously she's having a moment and studios like that her book adaptations have a build in audience. In fact the success of IEWU actually makes it more likely that Verity will get a theater release of some kind. But I also think you can argue that IEWU outperformed expectations even knowing it was a popular Hoover book with a decent following. One thing I will note is that international box office accounted for over 200m of its box office -- that's huge. I think Hoover might have a decent following in Europe, but also Lively went out of her way to go promote the film in London (attended the London premiere in person and paid for Ferrer to accompany her to it on Lively's own dime -- not sure if Lively also paid for her own travel/lodging for that premiere as well). I think you can argue that Lively played an important role in the success of the movie given it's international success, because of her willingness to go the extra mile on the promotional tour and also because of her recognizability to an international audience thanks to both Gossip Girl and her association with Reynolds. She's also a fashion darling and may receive more pressing Europe because of that -- her relationship with Vogue and certain designers (including Versace who did a lot of her clothes for the promotional tour for IEWU) is pretty well known among people interested in fashion.

She’s a fashion nightmare but ok

PP here and I personally don't like her style but that's beside the point. She's got good relationships with designers and fashion editors including a really good relationship with Vogue. She did the Vogue cover in September to coincide with the release of IEWU (the September issue comes out in August, and also is considered the most important issue of the year so the cover is a big get). She's hosted the Met Gala more than once and tends to be more involved and get better reviews than most celebrity hosts. She is a frequent front row guest at both Paris and New York fashion weeks and has attended Paris FW with Anna Wintour which is a weird special honor that tends to go to this very small group of actresses who Wintour dotes on (Emma Stone would be another actress in this group).

I find her personal fashion kind of obvious BUT it's true she famously does not work with a stylist and that she generally looks great on red carpets, which means she does know something because that's really hard to do -- not just because it requires understanding what looks good and how to put the whole look together, but it's also a logistics challenge because it means she has to have the relationships directly with designers and know how to manage the kind of political/interpersonal aspect of it which is more complicated than you might realize.

All of which is to say that Lively has some special attributes as an actress that would make her especially appealing from a box office standpoint for a movie with a primarily female audience in the 18-35 and 35-50 demographics -- those overlap perfectly with the audience for fashion content whether you are talking about Vogue magazine or In Style or just people who pay close attention to fashion blogs and red carpet events. And given IEWU's international box office, I would bet that her willingness to go abroad to promote the movie, to wear big name fashion and do red carpet events in London where it's going to get picked up by European fashion press who are already very familiar with her, translates to actual money for the studio in a very real way. Ever magazine article, blog post, and social media photo of Lively wearing big name fashion on a red carpet while promoting the movie is worth a lot of exposure that it could be hard to get with another actress. It's real value she brings to the project.

I mean, sure if you like tons of gaudy bangles and large chunky earrings, and colorful mismatched prints. It’s trying a little too hard and outdated but whatever floats your boat. With the huge hair, huge white teeth, huge silicone breasts…less is probably more. She’s like her bff TS, far from a style icon. This is partly why I fail to see Europeans following her, as they tend to have more sophisticated low key style generally.

Lol to the idea that Europeans as a group have "sophisticated, low key" style. American fashion is much more stripped down and low key when compared to what comes out of Europe, with the excess of the couture houses as well as all the avant garde fashion that comes out of London/Paris/Copenhagen. European fashion is not low key at all. Sophistication is in the eye of the beholder.

Europeans in general are not wearing avant garde high fashion couture on the daily.

You are really missing the point. It doesn't matter what Europeans wear daily. The point is that Lively will get quite a bit of press in Europe by showing up to events there and wearing designers like Stella McCartney and Tamara Ralph. Her outfit for the London premier got a ton of play in the fashion/celebrity press both in the UK/EU and in the US because it was eye popping and beautiful -- it made for a very pretty picture which makes it easy for photo editors to grab it and use it because it will attract eyeballs.

I'm sure there are plenty of Europeans who would roll their eyes at it and never wear anything like it (or the oversized white McCartney suit she wore as well) and find it tacky. I find it tacky! But Lively understands the fashion world and the fashion press and she definitely worked that knowledge to the best of her ability to sell this movie, which might be why it over performed at the box office so much.

Blake needs a stylist asap, but her bad sense of style is a type of karma, so just let it go.

Not that I understand fashion but what on earth does the bolder mean?

Is anything really bad taste anymore? In RL for sure but celebrities and pop musicians get away with some really bizarre outfits.

She was fat in her SNL corset, and all the slap and veneers and piles of jewelry make it all worse.

Not a BL fan but she looked pretty. I could also see her staying a little bigger to help her case ie that she was fat shamed. Keep in mind what looks bigger on camera would be considered super skinny in the real world. We should all like to look like her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think the success of the movie will be relevant because Baldoni will be arguing that negative sentiment toward Lively in August/September was "organic" but she'll be able to point to a lot of positive press that she generated through her promotion of the movie. Yes she also made mistakes but it's clear based on the success of the movie that, by and large, her promotional efforts were successful. When they try to say all the bad press was Lively's own fault, she'll be able to point to a lot of concrete efforts she made to boost her profile and the film to help sell it to audiences. And that while she was doing that, Baldoni and Wayfarer were paying PR professionals to try and tank her reputation online, even though that's actually an insane thing for a director and studio to do to the star of their own movie as the movie is being released.

I think you actually just made a good point for the wayfarer parties. It’s their film, they had no reason to try to tank it and that’s what they’ll say in court. I imagine wayfarer is getting a larger cut of the box office than lively and wayfarer owns the rights to the movie. It actually makes the takeover theory more plausible. Blake felt the movie would be a success (due to the book’s popularity and the Deadpool cross promo) and felt like she was a bigger part of that success, thus enabling her to rationalize her twisted plot to steal the movie. It’s certainly motive if she ultimately wanted to get the rights to, or a bigger cut of, the sequel.

I agree it's insane that Wayfarer would try to tank their own movie but... they kind of did? Even Baldoni's own PR team made fun of him for not doing enough to promote the movie. In the Leslie Sloane motion to dismiss, she highlights several texts between Nathan and Abel where they are talking about how much Baldoni sucks and how he wasn't doing much press that summer. He took a big break from any promotion in July because, he claimed, he was burnt out (right before his movie came out?) and apparently pitched the idea of promoting the movie by doing some kind of men's retreat (which they thought was stupid). They also point out to each other that Baldoni wasn't doing any magazine covers. He kind of sounds like a nightmare PR client because he wasn't doing much to promote his own movie, but then when they are talking about getting bad press about Lively out, he's very engaged. It's actually fascinating.

I do think this is going to matter in the court case. People can argue that some of Lively's promotional efforts were tone deaf and attracted bad press (I find it so baffling she wasn't prepared for that question about what she would say to DV survivors -- that's an easy layup with a bit of media preparation and it's really weird she wasn't ready with an answer). But no one can argue she didn't work her butt off promoting the movie. It looks like she did nothing but promotion from June until September, flying all over the country and overseas, dong ever red carpet, every interview, that she and her team could find. I do think that probably helped the film succeed and it's going to make it harder for Wayfarer to argue that the negative content about her online was all her fault. Even when she made the mistakes during promotion that got criticized, she and her PR team would quickly pivot to create positive press to move past it.

From a PR standpoint it's going to be hard to impugn Lively's efforts, especially when compared to Justin's, which is own PR team even though were lackluster and lame.

I tend to agree... the part where Baldoni hired PR to go on the offensive against Lively isn't really in dispute for me. It seems he did even though it wasn't good for the movie. And it's not unlawful to do that. It's only unlawful if it's deemed retaliation for sexual harassment. And Blake's sexual harassment claims are flimsy. The case for the PR attack is strong. It's just a question of is that legally retaliation or not if she didn't have a very strong harassment case, and was her case his motivation for what he did or was he striking back at the women he believe stole creative control.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m really curious how this movie made so much money. It’s currently grossed over $350 million, which is a crazy amount for a domestic violence film. Baldwin has come nowhere close to these numbers — Five Feet Apart grossed 45 million but Clouds grossed far less, I can’t even find real numbers but maybe only $2 million? Lively’s A Simple Favor (I) with Kendrick grossed about $100 million. I don’t think Hoover’s ever come close to this before. Was the success in fact from all the controversy? Was Reynold’s promotion firm really successful here? $350 million is a lot of viewers.

Maybe this was the plan all along, sort of reverse psychology. Even negative attention is better than no attention.

No,no. You guys are missing that Colleen Hoover‘s book was hugely popular. People have been waiting for this movie to be made for years and there was a lot of attention on it as soon as it was announced. She has a ginormous fan base. Another one of her books, verity, is being made with Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett, and Dakota Johnson.

I personally don’t understand the popularity of the books, but she is a huge deal. This was a really covered role that Blake scored.

Sorry, should say coveted role.

I mean, okay, but Come. On. Three past Hoover books have been made into movies: Ugly Love, Confess, and Maybe Someday, and none of them have made anywhere near this much money. I don't think I've heard of them, even. Not that fans may not have been looking out for this one, particularly, but are you really saying that would get the movie to $350M? I think It Ends With Us sold one or two million last year - that's not really getting into the half-of-a-Marvel-movie where the film's gross wound up, as far as I'm aware.

Anne Hathaway is an Oscar winner. SHe has her pick of any roles. The fact that she’s doing verity means these movies are going to be seen. I think you are really over estimating Blake here and really underestimating the machine that is Colleen Hoover.

It's being made by Amazon studios, though, and it's not yet clear if it's getting a theater release. It may be streaming only. Hathaway's last movie (The Idea of You) was a streaming-only feature on Prime, and she also was one of the big names who did an episode of their Modern Love series a few years ago (Tina Fey also did an episode, there were other A-list type people in it). She also starred in that WeCrashed series about the WeWork people -- I don't think that was Amazon though, maybe Max? Still a streaming product.

Streaming makes it much harder to evaluate the market for actor's box office power these days. Lots of big stars do streaming-only movies and limited series these days, and the streamers spend HUGE money on those productions right now, so it can be quite lucrative for the creators involved. But unlike a film with a theater release, you never get the kind of clear numbers with streaming products -- the streamers don't even release a transparent list of top streamed shows or movies (they release these partial lists but it's often not even clear what they represent because there are lots of ways to count something as "viewed" that don't necessarily equate to a ticket sale in a movie theater).

All of which is not to say that Colleen Hoover is not a lucrative product right now -- obviously she's having a moment and studios like that her book adaptations have a build in audience. In fact the success of IEWU actually makes it more likely that Verity will get a theater release of some kind. But I also think you can argue that IEWU outperformed expectations even knowing it was a popular Hoover book with a decent following. One thing I will note is that international box office accounted for over 200m of its box office -- that's huge. I think Hoover might have a decent following in Europe, but also Lively went out of her way to go promote the film in London (attended the London premiere in person and paid for Ferrer to accompany her to it on Lively's own dime -- not sure if Lively also paid for her own travel/lodging for that premiere as well). I think you can argue that Lively played an important role in the success of the movie given it's international success, because of her willingness to go the extra mile on the promotional tour and also because of her recognizability to an international audience thanks to both Gossip Girl and her association with Reynolds. She's also a fashion darling and may receive more pressing Europe because of that -- her relationship with Vogue and certain designers (including Versace who did a lot of her clothes for the promotional tour for IEWU) is pretty well known among people interested in fashion.

She’s a fashion nightmare but ok

PP here and I personally don't like her style but that's beside the point. She's got good relationships with designers and fashion editors including a really good relationship with Vogue. She did the Vogue cover in September to coincide with the release of IEWU (the September issue comes out in August, and also is considered the most important issue of the year so the cover is a big get). She's hosted the Met Gala more than once and tends to be more involved and get better reviews than most celebrity hosts. She is a frequent front row guest at both Paris and New York fashion weeks and has attended Paris FW with Anna Wintour which is a weird special honor that tends to go to this very small group of actresses who Wintour dotes on (Emma Stone would be another actress in this group).

I find her personal fashion kind of obvious BUT it's true she famously does not work with a stylist and that she generally looks great on red carpets, which means she does know something because that's really hard to do -- not just because it requires understanding what looks good and how to put the whole look together, but it's also a logistics challenge because it means she has to have the relationships directly with designers and know how to manage the kind of political/interpersonal aspect of it which is more complicated than you might realize.

All of which is to say that Lively has some special attributes as an actress that would make her especially appealing from a box office standpoint for a movie with a primarily female audience in the 18-35 and 35-50 demographics -- those overlap perfectly with the audience for fashion content whether you are talking about Vogue magazine or In Style or just people who pay close attention to fashion blogs and red carpet events. And given IEWU's international box office, I would bet that her willingness to go abroad to promote the movie, to wear big name fashion and do red carpet events in London where it's going to get picked up by European fashion press who are already very familiar with her, translates to actual money for the studio in a very real way. Ever magazine article, blog post, and social media photo of Lively wearing big name fashion on a red carpet while promoting the movie is worth a lot of exposure that it could be hard to get with another actress. It's real value she brings to the project.

I mean, sure if you like tons of gaudy bangles and large chunky earrings, and colorful mismatched prints. It’s trying a little too hard and outdated but whatever floats your boat. With the huge hair, huge white teeth, huge silicone breasts…less is probably more. She’s like her bff TS, far from a style icon. This is partly why I fail to see Europeans following her, as they tend to have more sophisticated low key style generally.

Lol to the idea that Europeans as a group have "sophisticated, low key" style. American fashion is much more stripped down and low key when compared to what comes out of Europe, with the excess of the couture houses as well as all the avant garde fashion that comes out of London/Paris/Copenhagen. European fashion is not low key at all. Sophistication is in the eye of the beholder.

Europeans in general are not wearing avant garde high fashion couture on the daily.

You are really missing the point. It doesn't matter what Europeans wear daily. The point is that Lively will get quite a bit of press in Europe by showing up to events there and wearing designers like Stella McCartney and Tamara Ralph. Her outfit for the London premier got a ton of play in the fashion/celebrity press both in the UK/EU and in the US because it was eye popping and beautiful -- it made for a very pretty picture which makes it easy for photo editors to grab it and use it because it will attract eyeballs.

I'm sure there are plenty of Europeans who would roll their eyes at it and never wear anything like it (or the oversized white McCartney suit she wore as well) and find it tacky. I find it tacky! But Lively understands the fashion world and the fashion press and she definitely worked that knowledge to the best of her ability to sell this movie, which might be why it over performed at the box office so much.

Blake needs a stylist asap, but her bad sense of style is a type of karma, so just let it go.

Not that I understand fashion but what on earth does the bolder mean?

Is anything really bad taste anymore? In RL for sure but celebrities and pop musicians get away with some really bizarre outfits.

She was fat in her SNL corset, and all the slap and veneers and piles of jewelry make it all worse.

Not a BL fan but she looked pretty. I could also see her staying a little bigger to help her case ie that she was fat shamed. Keep in mind what looks bigger on camera would be considered super skinny in the real world. We should all like to look like her.

Not to me. Mileages vary!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think the success of the movie will be relevant because Baldoni will be arguing that negative sentiment toward Lively in August/September was "organic" but she'll be able to point to a lot of positive press that she generated through her promotion of the movie. Yes she also made mistakes but it's clear based on the success of the movie that, by and large, her promotional efforts were successful. When they try to say all the bad press was Lively's own fault, she'll be able to point to a lot of concrete efforts she made to boost her profile and the film to help sell it to audiences. And that while she was doing that, Baldoni and Wayfarer were paying PR professionals to try and tank her reputation online, even though that's actually an insane thing for a director and studio to do to the star of their own movie as the movie is being released.

I think you actually just made a good point for the wayfarer parties. It’s their film, they had no reason to try to tank it and that’s what they’ll say in court. I imagine wayfarer is getting a larger cut of the box office than lively and wayfarer owns the rights to the movie. It actually makes the takeover theory more plausible. Blake felt the movie would be a success (due to the book’s popularity and the Deadpool cross promo) and felt like she was a bigger part of that success, thus enabling her to rationalize her twisted plot to steal the movie. It’s certainly motive if she ultimately wanted to get the rights to, or a bigger cut of, the sequel.

I agree it's insane that Wayfarer would try to tank their own movie but... they kind of did? Even Baldoni's own PR team made fun of him for not doing enough to promote the movie. In the Leslie Sloane motion to dismiss, she highlights several texts between Nathan and Abel where they are talking about how much Baldoni sucks and how he wasn't doing much press that summer. He took a big break from any promotion in July because, he claimed, he was burnt out (right before his movie came out?) and apparently pitched the idea of promoting the movie by doing some kind of men's retreat (which they thought was stupid). They also point out to each other that Baldoni wasn't doing any magazine covers. He kind of sounds like a nightmare PR client because he wasn't doing much to promote his own movie, but then when they are talking about getting bad press about Lively out, he's very engaged. It's actually fascinating.

I do think this is going to matter in the court case. People can argue that some of Lively's promotional efforts were tone deaf and attracted bad press (I find it so baffling she wasn't prepared for that question about what she would say to DV survivors -- that's an easy layup with a bit of media preparation and it's really weird she wasn't ready with an answer). But no one can argue she didn't work her butt off promoting the movie. It looks like she did nothing but promotion from June until September, flying all over the country and overseas, dong ever red carpet, every interview, that she and her team could find. I do think that probably helped the film succeed and it's going to make it harder for Wayfarer to argue that the negative content about her online was all her fault. Even when she made the mistakes during promotion that got criticized, she and her PR team would quickly pivot to create positive press to move past it.

From a PR standpoint it's going to be hard to impugn Lively's efforts, especially when compared to Justin's, which is own PR team even though were lackluster and lame.

I tend to agree... the part where Baldoni hired PR to go on the offensive against Lively isn't really in dispute for me. It seems he did even though it wasn't good for the movie. And it's not unlawful to do that. It's only unlawful if it's deemed retaliation for sexual harassment. And Blake's sexual harassment claims are flimsy. The case for the PR attack is strong. It's just a question of is that legally retaliation or not if she didn't have a very strong harassment case, and was her case his motivation for what he did or was he striking back at the women he believe stole creative control.

DP but I basically agree with this, too, except I find her SH harassment claims more credible than you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think the success of the movie will be relevant because Baldoni will be arguing that negative sentiment toward Lively in August/September was "organic" but she'll be able to point to a lot of positive press that she generated through her promotion of the movie. Yes she also made mistakes but it's clear based on the success of the movie that, by and large, her promotional efforts were successful. When they try to say all the bad press was Lively's own fault, she'll be able to point to a lot of concrete efforts she made to boost her profile and the film to help sell it to audiences. And that while she was doing that, Baldoni and Wayfarer were paying PR professionals to try and tank her reputation online, even though that's actually an insane thing for a director and studio to do to the star of their own movie as the movie is being released.

I think you actually just made a good point for the wayfarer parties. It’s their film, they had no reason to try to tank it and that’s what they’ll say in court. I imagine wayfarer is getting a larger cut of the box office than lively and wayfarer owns the rights to the movie. It actually makes the takeover theory more plausible. Blake felt the movie would be a success (due to the book’s popularity and the Deadpool cross promo) and felt like she was a bigger part of that success, thus enabling her to rationalize her twisted plot to steal the movie. It’s certainly motive if she ultimately wanted to get the rights to, or a bigger cut of, the sequel.

I agree it's insane that Wayfarer would try to tank their own movie but... they kind of did? Even Baldoni's own PR team made fun of him for not doing enough to promote the movie. In the Leslie Sloane motion to dismiss, she highlights several texts between Nathan and Abel where they are talking about how much Baldoni sucks and how he wasn't doing much press that summer. He took a big break from any promotion in July because, he claimed, he was burnt out (right before his movie came out?) and apparently pitched the idea of promoting the movie by doing some kind of men's retreat (which they thought was stupid). They also point out to each other that Baldoni wasn't doing any magazine covers. He kind of sounds like a nightmare PR client because he wasn't doing much to promote his own movie, but then when they are talking about getting bad press about Lively out, he's very engaged. It's actually fascinating.

I do think this is going to matter in the court case. People can argue that some of Lively's promotional efforts were tone deaf and attracted bad press (I find it so baffling she wasn't prepared for that question about what she would say to DV survivors -- that's an easy layup with a bit of media preparation and it's really weird she wasn't ready with an answer). But no one can argue she didn't work her butt off promoting the movie. It looks like she did nothing but promotion from June until September, flying all over the country and overseas, dong ever red carpet, every interview, that she and her team could find. I do think that probably helped the film succeed and it's going to make it harder for Wayfarer to argue that the negative content about her online was all her fault. Even when she made the mistakes during promotion that got criticized, she and her PR team would quickly pivot to create positive press to move past it.

From a PR standpoint it's going to be hard to impugn Lively's efforts, especially when compared to Justin's, which is own PR team even though were lackluster and lame.

I tend to agree... the part where Baldoni hired PR to go on the offensive against Lively isn't really in dispute for me. It seems he did even though it wasn't good for the movie. And it's not unlawful to do that. It's only unlawful if it's deemed retaliation for sexual harassment. And Blake's sexual harassment claims are flimsy. The case for the PR attack is strong. It's just a question of is that legally retaliation or not if she didn't have a very strong harassment case, and was her case his motivation for what he did or was he striking back at the women he believe stole creative control.

DP but I basically agree with this, too, except I find her SH harassment claims more credible than you.

Same, and I also think that given the that others on set had issues wit Baldoni and Heath, she's likely to clear some minimum bar for some kind of workplace harassment to get to the retaliation claims. My understanding is that many lawsuits are successful on retaliation even when the underlying harassment seems kind of thin, if the retaliation claims are very strong. I don't know that this is a picture perfect example of sexual harassment, but it seems apparent that there was inappropriate behavior on the set that was reported and, at least in some cases, continued afterwards. That's probably enough to get to the retaliation and it does seem her claims there are strong.

I do think her harassment claims would be weaker if there weren't evidence of others on set having issues. To me the allegations that another actress on set filed a complaint regarding similar behavior helps her enormously. Not sure why this isn't being discussed more? it seems like a big development to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think the success of the movie will be relevant because Baldoni will be arguing that negative sentiment toward Lively in August/September was "organic" but she'll be able to point to a lot of positive press that she generated through her promotion of the movie. Yes she also made mistakes but it's clear based on the success of the movie that, by and large, her promotional efforts were successful. When they try to say all the bad press was Lively's own fault, she'll be able to point to a lot of concrete efforts she made to boost her profile and the film to help sell it to audiences. And that while she was doing that, Baldoni and Wayfarer were paying PR professionals to try and tank her reputation online, even though that's actually an insane thing for a director and studio to do to the star of their own movie as the movie is being released.

I think you actually just made a good point for the wayfarer parties. It’s their film, they had no reason to try to tank it and that’s what they’ll say in court. I imagine wayfarer is getting a larger cut of the box office than lively and wayfarer owns the rights to the movie. It actually makes the takeover theory more plausible. Blake felt the movie would be a success (due to the book’s popularity and the Deadpool cross promo) and felt like she was a bigger part of that success, thus enabling her to rationalize her twisted plot to steal the movie. It’s certainly motive if she ultimately wanted to get the rights to, or a bigger cut of, the sequel.

I agree it's insane that Wayfarer would try to tank their own movie but... they kind of did? Even Baldoni's own PR team made fun of him for not doing enough to promote the movie. In the Leslie Sloane motion to dismiss, she highlights several texts between Nathan and Abel where they are talking about how much Baldoni sucks and how he wasn't doing much press that summer. He took a big break from any promotion in July because, he claimed, he was burnt out (right before his movie came out?) and apparently pitched the idea of promoting the movie by doing some kind of men's retreat (which they thought was stupid). They also point out to each other that Baldoni wasn't doing any magazine covers. He kind of sounds like a nightmare PR client because he wasn't doing much to promote his own movie, but then when they are talking about getting bad press about Lively out, he's very engaged. It's actually fascinating.

I do think this is going to matter in the court case. People can argue that some of Lively's promotional efforts were tone deaf and attracted bad press (I find it so baffling she wasn't prepared for that question about what she would say to DV survivors -- that's an easy layup with a bit of media preparation and it's really weird she wasn't ready with an answer). But no one can argue she didn't work her butt off promoting the movie. It looks like she did nothing but promotion from June until September, flying all over the country and overseas, dong ever red carpet, every interview, that she and her team could find. I do think that probably helped the film succeed and it's going to make it harder for Wayfarer to argue that the negative content about her online was all her fault. Even when she made the mistakes during promotion that got criticized, she and her PR team would quickly pivot to create positive press to move past it.

From a PR standpoint it's going to be hard to impugn Lively's efforts, especially when compared to Justin's, which is own PR team even though were lackluster and lame.

I tend to agree... the part where Baldoni hired PR to go on the offensive against Lively isn't really in dispute for me. It seems he did even though it wasn't good for the movie. And it's not unlawful to do that. It's only unlawful if it's deemed retaliation for sexual harassment. And Blake's sexual harassment claims are flimsy. The case for the PR attack is strong. It's just a question of is that legally retaliation or not if she didn't have a very strong harassment case, and was her case his motivation for what he did or was he striking back at the women he believe stole creative control.

DP but I basically agree with this, too, except I find her SH harassment claims more credible than you.

Same, and I also think that given the that others on set had issues wit Baldoni and Heath, she's likely to clear some minimum bar for some kind of workplace harassment to get to the retaliation claims. My understanding is that many lawsuits are successful on retaliation even when the underlying harassment seems kind of thin, if the retaliation claims are very strong. I don't know that this is a picture perfect example of sexual harassment, but it seems apparent that there was inappropriate behavior on the set that was reported and, at least in some cases, continued afterwards. That's probably enough to get to the retaliation and it does seem her claims there are strong.

I do think her harassment claims would be weaker if there weren't evidence of others on set having issues. To me the allegations that another actress on set filed a complaint regarding similar behavior helps her enormously. Not sure why this isn't being discussed more? it seems like a big development to me.

I'm the one who said her sexual harassment claims are flimsy. I think she might have enough of a case to get to retaliation but we'll have to see. Initially when her CPD case came out I was impressed with how she handled things, laying out her concerns for return to production and laying that all out and getting it signed off, all discretely, and both parties have agreed the second half of filming went well. Since then some of his evidence has swayed me more to his defense but I still think it's possible that she made a bona fide claim (in her mind even if jury may not agree).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think the success of the movie will be relevant because Baldoni will be arguing that negative sentiment toward Lively in August/September was "organic" but she'll be able to point to a lot of positive press that she generated through her promotion of the movie. Yes she also made mistakes but it's clear based on the success of the movie that, by and large, her promotional efforts were successful. When they try to say all the bad press was Lively's own fault, she'll be able to point to a lot of concrete efforts she made to boost her profile and the film to help sell it to audiences. And that while she was doing that, Baldoni and Wayfarer were paying PR professionals to try and tank her reputation online, even though that's actually an insane thing for a director and studio to do to the star of their own movie as the movie is being released.

I think you actually just made a good point for the wayfarer parties. It’s their film, they had no reason to try to tank it and that’s what they’ll say in court. I imagine wayfarer is getting a larger cut of the box office than lively and wayfarer owns the rights to the movie. It actually makes the takeover theory more plausible. Blake felt the movie would be a success (due to the book’s popularity and the Deadpool cross promo) and felt like she was a bigger part of that success, thus enabling her to rationalize her twisted plot to steal the movie. It’s certainly motive if she ultimately wanted to get the rights to, or a bigger cut of, the sequel.

I agree it's insane that Wayfarer would try to tank their own movie but... they kind of did? Even Baldoni's own PR team made fun of him for not doing enough to promote the movie. In the Leslie Sloane motion to dismiss, she highlights several texts between Nathan and Abel where they are talking about how much Baldoni sucks and how he wasn't doing much press that summer. He took a big break from any promotion in July because, he claimed, he was burnt out (right before his movie came out?) and apparently pitched the idea of promoting the movie by doing some kind of men's retreat (which they thought was stupid). They also point out to each other that Baldoni wasn't doing any magazine covers. He kind of sounds like a nightmare PR client because he wasn't doing much to promote his own movie, but then when they are talking about getting bad press about Lively out, he's very engaged. It's actually fascinating.

I do think this is going to matter in the court case. People can argue that some of Lively's promotional efforts were tone deaf and attracted bad press (I find it so baffling she wasn't prepared for that question about what she would say to DV survivors -- that's an easy layup with a bit of media preparation and it's really weird she wasn't ready with an answer). But no one can argue she didn't work her butt off promoting the movie. It looks like she did nothing but promotion from June until September, flying all over the country and overseas, dong ever red carpet, every interview, that she and her team could find. I do think that probably helped the film succeed and it's going to make it harder for Wayfarer to argue that the negative content about her online was all her fault. Even when she made the mistakes during promotion that got criticized, she and her PR team would quickly pivot to create positive press to move past it.

From a PR standpoint it's going to be hard to impugn Lively's efforts, especially when compared to Justin's, which is own PR team even though were lackluster and lame.

I tend to agree... the part where Baldoni hired PR to go on the offensive against Lively isn't really in dispute for me. It seems he did even though it wasn't good for the movie. And it's not unlawful to do that. It's only unlawful if it's deemed retaliation for sexual harassment. And Blake's sexual harassment claims are flimsy. The case for the PR attack is strong. It's just a question of is that legally retaliation or not if she didn't have a very strong harassment case, and was her case his motivation for what he did or was he striking back at the women he believe stole creative control.

DP but I basically agree with this, too, except I find her SH harassment claims more credible than you.

Same, and I also think that given the that others on set had issues wit Baldoni and Heath, she's likely to clear some minimum bar for some kind of workplace harassment to get to the retaliation claims. My understanding is that many lawsuits are successful on retaliation even when the underlying harassment seems kind of thin, if the retaliation claims are very strong. I don't know that this is a picture perfect example of sexual harassment, but it seems apparent that there was inappropriate behavior on the set that was reported and, at least in some cases, continued afterwards. That's probably enough to get to the retaliation and it does seem her claims there are strong.

I do think her harassment claims would be weaker if there weren't evidence of others on set having issues. To me the allegations that another actress on set filed a complaint regarding similar behavior helps her enormously. Not sure why this isn't being discussed more? it seems like a big development to me.

Go back about 5 pages. The other woman is allegedly Jenny and the harassment was that she wanted a new apartment b/c the one she rented during filming wasn’t suitable for her toddler but she didn’t want to lose her security deposit. Heath offered for wayfarer to cover the loss but apparently he made a big deal about the importance of motherhood in a way that made her feel “uncomfortable”. Vomit

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Apparently, Jenny‘s complaint about the sanctity of motherhood comment was about Jamey Heath, not Justin.

Ridiculous is what it is. To get HR involved when someone is nice enough to offer to pay your deposit because they want to see you and your child in a better place is just crazy. I am giving this the biggest eye roll. I bet Jenny was looking for anything that she could point to after Blake had her primed. If this is her issue she should be embarrassed.

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Anonymous wrote:I’m really curious how this movie made so much money. It’s currently grossed over $350 million, which is a crazy amount for a domestic violence film. Baldwin has come nowhere close to these numbers — Five Feet Apart grossed 45 million but Clouds grossed far less, I can’t even find real numbers but maybe only $2 million? Lively’s A Simple Favor (I) with Kendrick grossed about $100 million. I don’t think Hoover’s ever come close to this before. Was the success in fact from all the controversy? Was Reynold’s promotion firm really successful here? $350 million is a lot of viewers.

Maybe this was the plan all along, sort of reverse psychology. Even negative attention is better than no attention.

No,no. You guys are missing that Colleen Hoover‘s book was hugely popular. People have been waiting for this movie to be made for years and there was a lot of attention on it as soon as it was announced. She has a ginormous fan base. Another one of her books, verity, is being made with Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett, and Dakota Johnson.

I personally don’t understand the popularity of the books, but she is a huge deal. This was a really covered role that Blake scored.

Sorry, should say coveted role.

I mean, okay, but Come. On. Three past Hoover books have been made into movies: Ugly Love, Confess, and Maybe Someday, and none of them have made anywhere near this much money. I don't think I've heard of them, even. Not that fans may not have been looking out for this one, particularly, but are you really saying that would get the movie to $350M? I think It Ends With Us sold one or two million last year - that's not really getting into the half-of-a-Marvel-movie where the film's gross wound up, as far as I'm aware.

Anne Hathaway is an Oscar winner. SHe has her pick of any roles. The fact that she’s doing verity means these movies are going to be seen. I think you are really over estimating Blake here and really underestimating the machine that is Colleen Hoover.

It's being made by Amazon studios, though, and it's not yet clear if it's getting a theater release. It may be streaming only. Hathaway's last movie (The Idea of You) was a streaming-only feature on Prime, and she also was one of the big names who did an episode of their Modern Love series a few years ago (Tina Fey also did an episode, there were other A-list type people in it). She also starred in that WeCrashed series about the WeWork people -- I don't think that was Amazon though, maybe Max? Still a streaming product.

Streaming makes it much harder to evaluate the market for actor's box office power these days. Lots of big stars do streaming-only movies and limited series these days, and the streamers spend HUGE money on those productions right now, so it can be quite lucrative for the creators involved. But unlike a film with a theater release, you never get the kind of clear numbers with streaming products -- the streamers don't even release a transparent list of top streamed shows or movies (they release these partial lists but it's often not even clear what they represent because there are lots of ways to count something as "viewed" that don't necessarily equate to a ticket sale in a movie theater).

All of which is not to say that Colleen Hoover is not a lucrative product right now -- obviously she's having a moment and studios like that her book adaptations have a build in audience. In fact the success of IEWU actually makes it more likely that Verity will get a theater release of some kind. But I also think you can argue that IEWU outperformed expectations even knowing it was a popular Hoover book with a decent following. One thing I will note is that international box office accounted for over 200m of its box office -- that's huge. I think Hoover might have a decent following in Europe, but also Lively went out of her way to go promote the film in London (attended the London premiere in person and paid for Ferrer to accompany her to it on Lively's own dime -- not sure if Lively also paid for her own travel/lodging for that premiere as well). I think you can argue that Lively played an important role in the success of the movie given it's international success, because of her willingness to go the extra mile on the promotional tour and also because of her recognizability to an international audience thanks to both Gossip Girl and her association with Reynolds. She's also a fashion darling and may receive more pressing Europe because of that -- her relationship with Vogue and certain designers (including Versace who did a lot of her clothes for the promotional tour for IEWU) is pretty well known among people interested in fashion.

She’s a fashion nightmare but ok

PP here and I personally don't like her style but that's beside the point. She's got good relationships with designers and fashion editors including a really good relationship with Vogue. She did the Vogue cover in September to coincide with the release of IEWU (the September issue comes out in August, and also is considered the most important issue of the year so the cover is a big get). She's hosted the Met Gala more than once and tends to be more involved and get better reviews than most celebrity hosts. She is a frequent front row guest at both Paris and New York fashion weeks and has attended Paris FW with Anna Wintour which is a weird special honor that tends to go to this very small group of actresses who Wintour dotes on (Emma Stone would be another actress in this group).

I find her personal fashion kind of obvious BUT it's true she famously does not work with a stylist and that she generally looks great on red carpets, which means she does know something because that's really hard to do -- not just because it requires understanding what looks good and how to put the whole look together, but it's also a logistics challenge because it means she has to have the relationships directly with designers and know how to manage the kind of political/interpersonal aspect of it which is more complicated than you might realize.

All of which is to say that Lively has some special attributes as an actress that would make her especially appealing from a box office standpoint for a movie with a primarily female audience in the 18-35 and 35-50 demographics -- those overlap perfectly with the audience for fashion content whether you are talking about Vogue magazine or In Style or just people who pay close attention to fashion blogs and red carpet events. And given IEWU's international box office, I would bet that her willingness to go abroad to promote the movie, to wear big name fashion and do red carpet events in London where it's going to get picked up by European fashion press who are already very familiar with her, translates to actual money for the studio in a very real way. Ever magazine article, blog post, and social media photo of Lively wearing big name fashion on a red carpet while promoting the movie is worth a lot of exposure that it could be hard to get with another actress. It's real value she brings to the project.

I mean, sure if you like tons of gaudy bangles and large chunky earrings, and colorful mismatched prints. It’s trying a little too hard and outdated but whatever floats your boat. With the huge hair, huge white teeth, huge silicone breasts…less is probably more. She’s like her bff TS, far from a style icon. This is partly why I fail to see Europeans following her, as they tend to have more sophisticated low key style generally.

Lol to the idea that Europeans as a group have "sophisticated, low key" style. American fashion is much more stripped down and low key when compared to what comes out of Europe, with the excess of the couture houses as well as all the avant garde fashion that comes out of London/Paris/Copenhagen. European fashion is not low key at all. Sophistication is in the eye of the beholder.

Europeans in general are not wearing avant garde high fashion couture on the daily.

You are really missing the point. It doesn't matter what Europeans wear daily. The point is that Lively will get quite a bit of press in Europe by showing up to events there and wearing designers like Stella McCartney and Tamara Ralph. Her outfit for the London premier got a ton of play in the fashion/celebrity press both in the UK/EU and in the US because it was eye popping and beautiful -- it made for a very pretty picture which makes it easy for photo editors to grab it and use it because it will attract eyeballs.

I'm sure there are plenty of Europeans who would roll their eyes at it and never wear anything like it (or the oversized white McCartney suit she wore as well) and find it tacky. I find it tacky! But Lively understands the fashion world and the fashion press and she definitely worked that knowledge to the best of her ability to sell this movie, which might be why it over performed at the box office so much.

Blake needs a stylist asap, but her bad sense of style is a type of karma, so just let it go.

Keep telling her she looks good, the ‘Europeans’ love her style, the bigger longer the hair the better, the bigger and whiter the teeth, bigger lips, bigger boobs, big chunky jewels, lots of sarcasm, big and ostentatious is always better. Keep telling her that.

Hilarious!

Im pp who said that the prints and boots need to go…I will say that hiring a stylist may not be such a bad idea for her. But it she didn’t want an IC because why would she since she’s birthed 4 kids, then she couldn’t possibly want to agree to a stylist, since she’s been dressing herself since all her life. She knows best

[Anonymous]

For the success of the movie no one has mentioned the Taylor swift song. That would have played a role for sure. There is a reason Blake threatened to have it pulled when she wasn’t getting her way about something.

That, and the colleen hoover effect. I’ll give Blake some credit too, and I think being spotted on double dates with Taylor and being at the Super Bowl with Taylor definitely helped Blake‘s popularity. Of course that ship has sailed now, but I’m sure it helped.