Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

At the Copenhagen premiere, Lively was asked what drew her to this movie and this character. Here is what she says, I've highted some relevant portions:

"You know, I think that what was most significant to me is I've been doing this for 20 years, and I've been given the opportunity to play a woman who has levity and light and joy and humor, or a woman who is in love and there's a lightness to that, or a woman who experiences deep trauma and pain and sadness. But really, those are separated and parsed out into different women, and what' most palatable for the audience, whether it's a character or what's in service for a man.

So to have a woman who can experience lightness and levity and joy and all her dreams coming true, and her future and her past and her present, but also experience the deepest wells of pain and trauma... that, you don't get opportunities to play a woman of such multitudes. And so to be able to tell her story is hugely significant. And I feel very protective of her and her story.

This is a film that covers a lot of things. From first love, to being an entrepreneur and opening your first shop and having all your dreams come true, to falling in love, to finding a new best friend, to domestic violence. Which you don't hear all of those things in one place. But you know, this isn't a story, this isn't a love story, this isn't a love triangle, and this isn't a film about domestic violence. It's a film about a woman. Because she's not defined by anything any man did to her, whether positive or negative. [Applause]. It's true. Or events that happen to her. It's not her identity.

That's not to minimize that. She is a survivor, and she is a victim. But it's not her identity. And it's critical to convey that, because when it's not your identity, when it's something that happened to you but not who you are, you can change that. And you may not know right away or you may get lost, but this movie is not about the men in her life, or anything anyone did to her or has done to her or ever will do. It's a story about a woman who's multifaceted and the messiness of the human experience, and in her case, the female experience."

You can see it here, at 5:10 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYJ-GFJmT7M

[Anonymous]

Oh no you did not. Firstly, read the article that I posted above. Secondly, she said she called the fashion shots on her characters wardrobe. I didn’t put those words in her mouth. Thirdly, the choices selected were viewed as wrong for the character. That was the backlash, that whatever BL cooked up was so bad that people who loved the book and followed the character did not (did not) view the character’s style and wardrobe as reflected in the movie was true to their vision of her (and they are allowed to feel that way and subsequently be turned off by the character).

So at least get those parts right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not linking to that giant comment, but the movie made over $350 million dollars! Everyone should be paying Blake Lively to help with the wardrobe on their movies going forward! Most movies like this are lucky to make $50 million, and $100 million would have been a huge success! The wardrobe stuff obviously created buzz that translated into ticket sales.

I’m just noting that the mean moms calling Lively fat are hypocrites, which I’m allowed to do, just like you’re allowed to focus on the parts of this saga that are boring to me. To each her own.

But it’s disingenuous to say Blake lively made the movie $350 million. She clearly contributed to that, but the movie was coming in with a huge fan base. Colleen Hoover is one of the best selling authors to ever exist in the world. Of the top 20 best sellers in the last year, 8 of those are Colleen Hoover books. That is pretty unprecedented and IEWU is one of her most popular and it has a sequel so people were really excited for this franchise.

Absolutely agree that she contributed to why this movie did so well I’m not trying to take away from that, but what annoys me about this is Justin and his team had been working on this since 2019. They fought for the rights, They secured financing, they hired a screenwriter to adapt the book for the screen and got Colleen Hoover’s approval on that. They set up a whole world which took years of work and Blake stepped in and wanted to make some changes and call it her movie.

Also, with a movie with so many built-in fans, she didn’t treat them very respectfully. She constantly had her lawyer threaten her walking away from the movie which she could’ve easily done since she never signed her contract. That would have caused the production company millions and no doubt tank this movie and it would likely not have been made for many years. The utter disrespect and just overall gall is absurd.

[Anonymous]

Early on, Baldoni was not talking about DV either. I saw a promo clip where he was with two women touring a flower shop, making flower bouquets and talking about the film but not about DV. He does talk about Blake a lot in the interview, with knowing the context now, it was very passive aggressive!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not linking to that giant comment, but the movie made over $350 million dollars! Everyone should be paying Blake Lively to help with the wardrobe on their movies going forward! Most movies like this are lucky to make $50 million, and $100 million would have been a huge success! The wardrobe stuff obviously created buzz that translated into ticket sales.

I’m just noting that the mean moms calling Lively fat are hypocrites, which I’m allowed to do, just like you’re allowed to focus on the parts of this saga that are boring to me. To each her own.

But it’s disingenuous to say Blake lively made the movie $350 million. She clearly contributed to that, but the movie was coming in with a huge fan base. Colleen Hoover is one of the best selling authors to ever exist in the world. Of the top 20 best sellers in the last year, 8 of those are Colleen Hoover books. That is pretty unprecedented and IEWU is one of her most popular and it has a sequel so people were really excited for this franchise.

Absolutely agree that she contributed to why this movie did so well I’m not trying to take away from that, but what annoys me about this is Justin and his team had been working on this since 2019. They fought for the rights, They secured financing, they hired a screenwriter to adapt the book for the screen and got Colleen Hoover’s approval on that. They set up a whole world which took years of work and Blake stepped in and wanted to make some changes and call it her movie.

Also, with a movie with so many built-in fans, she didn’t treat them very respectfully. She constantly had her lawyer threaten her walking away from the movie which she could’ve easily done since she never signed her contract. That would have caused the production company millions and no doubt tank this movie and it would likely not have been made for many years. The utter disrespect and just overall gall is absurd.

I don’t totally disagree with some of what you say but to pretend this is about her disrespect of HIM after surprisingly trying to have her naked for the delivery scene and mansplaining to her (mother of 4) what a “normal woman” looked like in childbirth is a little much for me. The problems started with him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not linking to that giant comment, but the movie made over $350 million dollars! Everyone should be paying Blake Lively to help with the wardrobe on their movies going forward! Most movies like this are lucky to make $50 million, and $100 million would have been a huge success! The wardrobe stuff obviously created buzz that translated into ticket sales.

I’m just noting that the mean moms calling Lively fat are hypocrites, which I’m allowed to do, just like you’re allowed to focus on the parts of this saga that are boring to me. To each her own.

No one called her fat or portly. We just said that she was big, wore a lot of patterns and double pants, and lots of boots!!! With that hair!


Not for every mom I guess. And that’s okay.

[Anonymous]

Also no to SATC. I love that show. Carrie was quirky, but not dollar store quirky like this (someone else called is Ross Dress for Less quirky).

The fashion was off for this character. That’s all I have to say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At the Copenhagen premiere, Lively was asked what drew her to this movie and this character. Here is what she says, I've highted some relevant portions:

"You know, I think that what was most significant to me is I've been doing this for 20 years, and I've been given the opportunity to play a woman who has levity and light and joy and humor, or a woman who is in love and there's a lightness to that, or a woman who experiences deep trauma and pain and sadness. But really, those are separated and parsed out into different women, and what' most palatable for the audience, whether it's a character or what's in service for a man.

So to have a woman who can experience lightness and levity and joy and all her dreams coming true, and her future and her past and her present, but also experience the deepest wells of pain and trauma... that, you don't get opportunities to play a woman of such multitudes. And so to be able to tell her story is hugely significant. And I feel very protective of her and her story.

This is a film that covers a lot of things. From first love, to being an entrepreneur and opening your first shop and having all your dreams come true, to falling in love, to finding a new best friend, to domestic violence. Which you don't hear all of those things in one place. But you know, this isn't a story, this isn't a love story, this isn't a love triangle, and this isn't a film about domestic violence. It's a film about a woman. Because she's not defined by anything any man did to her, whether positive or negative. [Applause]. It's true. Or events that happen to her. It's not her identity.

That's not to minimize that. She is a survivor, and she is a victim. But it's not her identity. And it's critical to convey that, because when it's not your identity, when it's something that happened to you but not who you are, you can change that. And you may not know right away or you may get lost, but this movie is not about the men in her life, or anything anyone did to her or has done to her or ever will do. It's a story about a woman who's multifaceted and the messiness of the human experience, and in her case, the female experience."

You can see it here, at 5:10 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYJ-GFJmT7M

Geez, are fans really mad at Lively for that? That seems like a pretty reasonable and even (on the DV side) actually learned and progressively feminist statement about women who experience DV — you shouldn’t just reduce them to their DV experience, they are more than that, and it doesn’t define who they are. I have represented a DV victim and kept up with the literature and this seems like “the correct take” to me, tbh.

Also, whoever reduced this to “this isn’t a film about domestic violence” should be completely ashamed of themselves imho. Throwing up in my mouth a little at you lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not linking to that giant comment, but the movie made over $350 million dollars! Everyone should be paying Blake Lively to help with the wardrobe on their movies going forward! Most movies like this are lucky to make $50 million, and $100 million would have been a huge success! The wardrobe stuff obviously created buzz that translated into ticket sales.

I’m just noting that the mean moms calling Lively fat are hypocrites, which I’m allowed to do, just like you’re allowed to focus on the parts of this saga that are boring to me. To each her own.

It would have made $500 million starring an actress with talent, who doesn't repel audiences and co-stars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the Copenhagen premiere, Lively was asked what drew her to this movie and this character. Here is what she says, I've highted some relevant portions:

"You know, I think that what was most significant to me is I've been doing this for 20 years, and I've been given the opportunity to play a woman who has levity and light and joy and humor, or a woman who is in love and there's a lightness to that, or a woman who experiences deep trauma and pain and sadness. But really, those are separated and parsed out into different women, and what' most palatable for the audience, whether it's a character or what's in service for a man.

So to have a woman who can experience lightness and levity and joy and all her dreams coming true, and her future and her past and her present, but also experience the deepest wells of pain and trauma... that, you don't get opportunities to play a woman of such multitudes. And so to be able to tell her story is hugely significant. And I feel very protective of her and her story.

This is a film that covers a lot of things. From first love, to being an entrepreneur and opening your first shop and having all your dreams come true, to falling in love, to finding a new best friend, to domestic violence. Which you don't hear all of those things in one place. But you know, this isn't a story, this isn't a love story, this isn't a love triangle, and this isn't a film about domestic violence. It's a film about a woman. Because she's not defined by anything any man did to her, whether positive or negative. [Applause]. It's true. Or events that happen to her. It's not her identity.

That's not to minimize that. She is a survivor, and she is a victim. But it's not her identity. And it's critical to convey that, because when it's not your identity, when it's something that happened to you but not who you are, you can change that. And you may not know right away or you may get lost, but this movie is not about the men in her life, or anything anyone did to her or has done to her or ever will do. It's a story about a woman who's multifaceted and the messiness of the human experience, and in her case, the female experience."

You can see it here, at 5:10 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYJ-GFJmT7M

Geez, are fans really mad at Lively for that? That seems like a pretty reasonable and even (on the DV side) actually learned and progressively feminist statement about women who experience DV — you shouldn’t just reduce them to their DV experience, they are more than that, and it doesn’t define who they are. I have represented a DV victim and kept up with the literature and this seems like “the correct take” to me, tbh.

Also, whoever reduced this to “this isn’t a film about domestic violence” should be completely ashamed of themselves imho. Throwing up in my mouth a little at you lol.

Agreed. And this wasn't a prepared statement or a sit down interview where they can edit it down and she might be able to confer with a publicist between takes. It was an off-the-cuff reply to a question posed to her at a premiere.

I'm a survivor of sexual harassment and sexual assault (thankfully not DV but I've been in support groups with DV survivors) and this is how survivors and survivor advocates talk about these issues. There is nothing upsetting about this. She is obviously not saying the movie doesn't contain domestic violence. She's saying she doesn't want the movie reduced to being JUST about DV, and that she especially doesn't want her character reduced to nothing more than "DV victim" when the movie covers a much broader range of human experience.

[Anonymous]

The only romantic dramas that have made over $500M were Titanic, the Twilight sequels (sort of a different genre but okay), Ghost, and the first Fifty Shades movie. You think IEWU was going to do this without vampires, kink, huge names or a CGI sinking ship? I want to live in your fantasy world ha.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not linking to that giant comment, but the movie made over $350 million dollars! Everyone should be paying Blake Lively to help with the wardrobe on their movies going forward! Most movies like this are lucky to make $50 million, and $100 million would have been a huge success! The wardrobe stuff obviously created buzz that translated into ticket sales.

I’m just noting that the mean moms calling Lively fat are hypocrites, which I’m allowed to do, just like you’re allowed to focus on the parts of this saga that are boring to me. To each her own.

It would have made $500 million starring an actress with talent, who doesn't repel audiences and co-stars.

Movies centered on female characters and life experiences almost never gross $500 or more. The only recent one I can think of was Inside Out 2, which grossed $1.7b worldwide. But that's an animated movie, it was a sequel of a very popular first movie, and it had a G rating and a family focus. It also cost 200m to make, as opposed to 25m for IEWU. A movie rated PG-13, focused on a female lead, containing heavy themes including DV? No way. You could put the tippy top a-list actress in that role and it would never make that much. You can't get audiences to do see movies like that in those numbers.

For comparison:
The Girl on the Train, starring Emily Blunt, made $173.2m worldwide, on a $45m budget
Gone Girl, starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, made $168m worldwide, on a $61m budget

IEWU was a monster success, super cheap to make, and way, way, way outperformed expectations. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Guys, she simply should not have uttered the phrase “iIt is not about domestic violence.”

Absolutely fine to say it’s not only about domestic violence, but yes, she said it’s not about domestic violence. The title of the freaking movie is it ends with us, which refers to the cycle of domestic violence. This movie and this book was very, very much about domestic violence. You can talk about the strength of the character and yada yada yada, but to utter the phrase, This movie is not about domestic violence, and then go onto explain what all the other themes in the movie wereis really disingenuous and makes her sound very stupid. You are free to carry on and defend her, but this is not a smart lady and she really botched the marketing of this film.

Now defend why she advertised her and her husband‘s alcohol lines, and even named a drink after the abuser.

Look, this movie was originally slated to be a February premiere. It all got botched because of the strikes. I think it probably didn’t help that her husband was in a huge summer movie, and I think she really wanted to capitalize on that and have a Barbie Oppenheimer moment. Unfortunately, this is just not the movie to do this with given the built-in fan base and the topic. She screwed up. Which really would not have been a big deal, but she doubled down at every turn and here we are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a clip of her standing on stage at the premiere in Copenhagen, clearly stating, “ this is not a movie about domestic violence.”

She wanted so badly to do a big Barbie like romcom. It’s very strange, her whole approach.

Also, someone shared footage of January 5, 2024, first day back on set after the strike, Ryan Reynolds just standing behind her as she filmed a scene. So weird that he was there.

These people live in their own reality.

I just searched for this clip and listened to it and you are so weird. She says it’s about first love AND finding a new best friend AND domestic violence. And honestly, she’s right, isn’t she? The amount of time focusing on the problems in the relationship is not the whole film. It’s a story. But whatever, isolate one sentence she says from everything else.

The obsession some of you have with BL’s appearance is hysterical for a bunch of ladies on an anonymous blog in DC lol. Until you start signing on with a name and linking your high fashion instagrams, I’m just going to assume that you are the frumpiest of frumpsters yourselves who are at least 50 lbs overweight wearing crocks and stuffed into too small lululemons after 2 bratty kids (let alone 4). Oh the horror of looking like Blake Lively after 4 kids, you should be so lucky lol.

You obviously found the wrong clip. She clearly stated, this film is not about domestic violence.

It is super tone deaf and turned a lot of people off, especially fans of the book, who read a book very much about domestic violence.

Before you ramble on about how we all want to copy Blake’s crappy frumpy style and walk around like we just gave birth to our fourth child and we are really insecure about it, which, by the way was the style she chose in the movie, at least get the right clip.

She IMMEDIATELY went on after that to say that it was about first love AND finding a new bestie AND domestic violence. As PP says, she was explaining that the movie wasn’t ONLY about DV. But you hate her with a passion, so you remove the context and focus just on that sentence. It’s not a fair summary of what she said given the context she immediately provided afterwards but you need to spew out your hate here, apparently. 🤮

But who cares if it’s about those other things, it’s a freaking movie about domestic violence! To downplay this is so utterly tone deaf, and you are really just doing such mental gymnastics to justify this. I just posted before, she was desperately trying to downplay the domestic violence theme for whatever reason. Part of us is just that she wanted to be Barbie. I don’t know. It truly doesn’t matter, she utterly screwed up.

And every turn, she screwed up, and when people gave her the opportunity to offer any kind of messaging for women, she turned it into a joke. Why people are defending that is beyond me. If you want to go back to defending the work her lawyers are doing, that makes sense to me, but defending her marketing of this film is insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the Copenhagen premiere, Lively was asked what drew her to this movie and this character. Here is what she says, I've highted some relevant portions:

"You know, I think that what was most significant to me is I've been doing this for 20 years, and I've been given the opportunity to play a woman who has levity and light and joy and humor, or a woman who is in love and there's a lightness to that, or a woman who experiences deep trauma and pain and sadness. But really, those are separated and parsed out into different women, and what' most palatable for the audience, whether it's a character or what's in service for a man.

So to have a woman who can experience lightness and levity and joy and all her dreams coming true, and her future and her past and her present, but also experience the deepest wells of pain and trauma... that, you don't get opportunities to play a woman of such multitudes. And so to be able to tell her story is hugely significant. And I feel very protective of her and her story.

This is a film that covers a lot of things. From first love, to being an entrepreneur and opening your first shop and having all your dreams come true, to falling in love, to finding a new best friend, to domestic violence. Which you don't hear all of those things in one place. But you know, this isn't a story, this isn't a love story, this isn't a love triangle, and this isn't a film about domestic violence. It's a film about a woman. Because she's not defined by anything any man did to her, whether positive or negative. [Applause]. It's true. Or events that happen to her. It's not her identity.

That's not to minimize that. She is a survivor, and she is a victim. But it's not her identity. And it's critical to convey that, because when it's not your identity, when it's something that happened to you but not who you are, you can change that. And you may not know right away or you may get lost, but this movie is not about the men in her life, or anything anyone did to her or has done to her or ever will do. It's a story about a woman who's multifaceted and the messiness of the human experience, and in her case, the female experience."

You can see it here, at 5:10 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYJ-GFJmT7M

Geez, are fans really mad at Lively for that? That seems like a pretty reasonable and even (on the DV side) actually learned and progressively feminist statement about women who experience DV — you shouldn’t just reduce them to their DV experience, they are more than that, and it doesn’t define who they are. I have represented a DV victim and kept up with the literature and this seems like “the correct take” to me, tbh.

Also, whoever reduced this to “this isn’t a film about domestic violence” should be completely ashamed of themselves imho. Throwing up in my mouth a little at you lol.

Agreed. And this wasn't a prepared statement or a sit down interview where they can edit it down and she might be able to confer with a publicist between takes. It was an off-the-cuff reply to a question posed to her at a premiere.

I'm a survivor of sexual harassment and sexual assault (thankfully not DV but I've been in support groups with DV survivors) and this is how survivors and survivor advocates talk about these issues. There is nothing upsetting about this. She is obviously not saying the movie doesn't contain domestic violence. She's saying she doesn't want the movie reduced to being JUST about DV, and that she especially doesn't want her character reduced to nothing more than "DV victim" when the movie covers a much broader range of human experience.

Yes, I’m PO you’re responding to. In a way this statement maybe makes me understand more of why she wanted more control of the movie, eg, her statement about how she felt protective of her character. And this statement also fits with the comments I have seen from her re the rooftop scene — that that scene was supposed to be about the audience’s feelings about Lily and not about their feelings about Ryle — and comments I have seen saying Baldoni wanted the movie to allow for Ryle’s redemption, that no one was lost, whereas Lively wanted the focus to be on Lily. Some of the movie power struggle — beyond its current portrayal as just a money grab — begins to make a little more sense to me from this statement.

That said, I will say that I think something I specifically liked about the movie was a Baldoni contribution. The way that the movie initially shows the scenes where Ryle attacks or pushes Lily as being unclear or rushed, and the audience doesn’t see the whole thing — but only later when Lily is trying to look back objectively with distance can she see that Ryle actually pushed/hurt her — I really liked that and thought it had impact. Baldoni said he got that from his experience of losing his virginity unwillingly to his girlfriend in college, initially blaming himself and thinking it was his own fault, but only later looking back and realizing no, he said no, she really should have stopped, etc. Time can allow you to see things that you initially repressed.