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    Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni and the ‘It Ends With Us’ Drama, Explained

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    What’s happening onscreen has become secondary to the conversation about differences between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, her co-star and director.The Blake Lively romantic drama “It Ends With Us” revolves around a florist, and the film’s marketing campaign, including the red carpet and the posters, has been entirely floral-themed. But the press tour has hardly come up roses.The movie itself is a box office hit, earning $50 million after its release last weekend. The plot centers on Lily Bloom (Lively), who escapes a rough childhood, opens her dream flower store and soon meets her seemingly dream guy, Ryle Kincaid, played by the film’s director, Justin Baldoni.Based on a best-selling Colleen Hoover novel, “It Ends With Us” is ultimately about breaking the cycle of domestic violence that entraps one generation after another. But the film has been at the center of a surprisingly varied number of controversies that have raised a number of questions:Has there been a rift between Baldoni and the cast?Hints that things were off first surfaced at the New York and European premieres. Though Baldoni was in attendance, he wasn’t posing for the cameras with anyone else involved in the movie and wasn’t participating in joint interviews. Fans speculated that this was a marketing tactic, given that he plays an abusive husband. The theory seemed to be that the distance was a statement about not romanticizing the relationship between the Lively and Baldoni characters.But that conjecture was quickly discarded when it emerged that Lively, her husband, Ryan Reynolds, other cast members and even Hoover had unfollowed Baldoni on social media. The interpersonal drama was fueled by reports of conflict during the making of the film — all of it related by anonymous sources, of course.Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, at the New York premiere. Cindy Ord/Getty ImagesDoes the rift involve Ryan Reynolds?Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, secured the rights to the book in 2019, and in 2023 it was announced that Lively had signed on to star. Crucially, both had executive producer roles.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What ‘It Ends With Us’ Says About the Blake Lively Brand

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      The images onscreen are informed by the actress’s offscreen businesses, making the movie a fascinating study in the uses of star power.Blake Lively’s hair is like a character unto itself in the new romantic drama “It Ends With Us.”Her thick mane shapeshifts with her role, Lily Bloom, a flower shop owner who falls in and out of love with an abusive neurosurgeon. Lively’s hair, dyed a soft ginger, is artfully messy when she gets her hands dirty starting up the store. The camera follows a mass of buoyant curls when she struts into a party dressed to impress the man who will ultimately betray her. When she wakes up post-coitus, her hair is perfectly tousled. When she is sad, it droops as if by magic.You could say Blake Lively’s hair is a tool she uses to sell her performance, but her performance is also a tool she uses to sell her hair. Those who are impressed with her locks in “It Ends With Us” can learn from her Instagram that she recently debuted a line of hair-care products called Blake Brown. (Brown is her father’s last name.)In many ways “It Ends With Us” is a brand-building exercise for Lively. Yes, the film, directed by Justin Baldoni, is an adaptation of a popular novel, meant to lure fans of the best-selling author Colleen Hoover, but it also serves as an advertisement for the world of Lively — not just her talent but her celebrity and her other significant role, mogul, making the film a fascinating study in the various forms star power can take.On the most readily understandable level, “It Ends With Us” makes a convincing case for Lively as an actress. Her particular je ne sais quoi was evident back in the 2007 pilot of “Gossip Girl,” which opened with a tribute to her allure. Her character — Serena van der Woodsen, the rich girl with a troubled past — arrives at Grand Central, back in New York after a mysterious absence, and everyone turns toward her. As she looks around the train station’s vast hall, she looks gorgeous and wistful, every flip of her hair (that hair!) seems imbued with greater meaning.Lively as Serena van der Woodsen in the opening scenes of “Gossip Girl.”KC Bailey/CWLike every young star on that prime-time soap, Lively made a bid for a film career. “Green Lantern” (2011) didn’t win her a franchise, but it did introduce her to her future husband, Ryan Reynolds. The dark comedy “A Simple Favor” (2018), in which she played a martini-stirring psychopath, was a surprise box office success and garnered a fervent enough fan base to earn a sequel. But Lively seemed to struggle to find her niche in movies, and while she received some praise for performances in the romance “The Age of Adaline” (2015) and the survival thriller “The Shallows” (2016), nothing propelled her to the next level of fame on the big screen.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Director Shawn Levy on Those Surprise Cameos

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      Shawn Levy explains the thinking behind specific cameos, what was saved from discarded scripts and how they made that end-credits tribute to Fox.Though the director Shawn Levy has spent the last several months promoting his new blockbuster, “Deadpool & Wolverine,” there was so much he couldn’t say until now.“This conversation will be tantamount to therapy for me,” Levy joked last week as he signed on to a video call to discuss cameos and plot elements that had to be kept hidden until after the film’s juggernaut opening weekend. (Major spoilers follow.)Though trailers sold the movie as a team-up between Ryan Reynolds’s meta mercenary, Deadpool, and Hugh Jackman’s surly mutant, Wolverine, the starry supporting cast includes some big surprises, including Jennifer Garner as the assassin Elektra, Wesley Snipes as the vampire hunter Blade and Channing Tatum as the card-tossing mutant Gambit. The film’s multiverse-spanning shenanigans also allow the return of Chris Evans, who retired his Captain America character in “Avengers: Endgame” but here reprises Johnny Storm, the “Fantastic Four” character he played back when 20th Century Fox owned key pieces of the Marvel portfolio.Levy said nearly all of those surprise cameos were hatched in Reynolds’s apartment, where much of the movie was conceived amid pie-in-the-sky brainstorming. “It was the two of us acting scenes out, passing a laptop back and forth and saying, ‘Hey, what if this?’” Levy recalled. “It invariably led to one of us texting that actor and just asking.”Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.Ryan has said that you both had trouble cracking the story before Hugh agreed to come on board. Was there anything from those early, Wolverine-less versions that you kept?A few disparate elements made it all the way through, and one of the bigger ones includes this notion of Wade going through a midlife malaise and selling used cars: This was a guy who had given up on his better self and was living a life of compromise. That survived through the Wolverine iteration of this movie, as did the imperative of having Wade’s chosen family factor in. And I remember [Paul] Wernick and [Rhett] Reese, who co-wrote the first “Deadpool” movies, pitching this idea of a Chris Evans misdirect very, very early: What if we could get Chris Evans and the audience thinks it’s Cap, but he’s actually coming back as Johnny Storm? It was such an A-plus idea that it survived every iteration of the story line.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Is the Type of of Superhero Movie the Franchise Once Mocked

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      Making fun of schlocky, overwrought superhero movies used to be the Deadpool signature. But with “Deadpool & Wolverine,” and Disney’s push into the Marvel Universe, that thread is lost.Deadpool movies might as well begin with a fun qualifier for audiences: This isn’t a typical superhero movie; in fact, all genres and tropes are ripe for mocking by this foul-mouthed mercenary hero.In the first “Deadpool,” in the midst of a fight that includes decapitation and maiming, Ryan Reynolds’s Deadpool says, “I may be super, but I am no hero. And yeah, technically this is a murder. But some of the best love stories start with a murder. And that’s exactly what this is: a love story.” In the sequel, Deadpool says, “Believe it or not, ‘Deadpool 2’ is a family film. True story,” as he creatively murders a whole warehouse of Russian criminals. Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” plays in the background.We’ve got a violent superhero movie that’s also a low-key sendup of tender rom-coms, then another violent superhero movie that pokes fun at the loving family film. So what’s “Deadpool & Wolverine”? Nothing as exciting — just another formulaic Marvel Cinematic Universe movie with a saucier rating.This third installment of the Deadpool franchise fails to deliver on that same knowing play with genre. The jokes are mostly about leaning heavily into the rules and standards of the superhero genre as orchestrated by Marvel — a bad omen for the Deadpool brand, formerly of 20th Century Fox before Disney acquired it in 2019.The new movie picks up a thread from the previous one when Deadpool uses a time-travel device to save the love of his life, Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). It’s a blatant deus ex machina, and the film casually undercuts its own emotional arc in order to make meta jokes about whether time travel could have changed the trajectory of Reynolds’s career.“Deadpool & Wolverine” seems to have forgotten its own joke about the earnest use of cheap plot devices like that — it dives headfirst into the commercial wholesomeness, overextended plotlines and shameless fan service that have come to define the majority of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the last few years. In the latest film, Wolverine’s back from the dead (see the end of “Logan” to catch up), thanks to the multiverse, and he and Deadpool team up to keep Deadpool’s timeline from being decimated by the Time Variance Authority (see “Loki” to catch up).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Reviews Are In: Amusing or Exhausting?

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      Few critics could deny that the highly anticipated super spectacle, starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, has its charms — but most left wanting more.After a summer without superheroes, “Deadpool & Wolverine” is slashing its way into theaters.The high-octane collision of the wisecracking antihero Deadpool, played by Ryan Reynolds in two previous films, and the hulking and messianic Wolverine, played by Hugh Jackman (returning to the role for the first time since “Logan” in 2017), marks Marvel Studios’ only release of the calendar year. The movie, directed by Shawn Levy, is projected to have the best ever domestic opening weekend for an R-rated film.Most critics have found something to like in “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which has an 81 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. They say it has a superpowered jokes-per-minute ratio and two winning performances from its lead actors. But many reviewers had a mixed-to-negative assessment of the movie overall, calling it difficult to follow, lacking in real tension or stakes and overly reliant on self-referential story lines.Read on for some highlights.Look, I Laughed [Vulture]The movie’s aggressive sense of humor about itself may win you over despite its flaws. “‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ isn’t a particularly good movie — I’m not even sure it is a movie,” Bilge Ebiri wrote. “But it’s so determined to beat you down with its incessant irreverence that you might find yourself submitting to it.”Nothing Ever Ends [The New York Times]The movie’s existence reflects Hollywood’s inability to “let well enough alone,” wrote Alissa Wilkinson, but it’s entertaining nonetheless. “It still features Reynolds making fun of himself; it has some fun set pieces, clever sight gags, amusing surprises, left-field references and adoring pauses to admire Jackman’s biceps and abs.”‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Makes the M.C.U. the Villain — and Not in a Good Way [Polygon]In a negative review, Joshua Rivera found the film dispiritingly hollow. “‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ has made its hero the worst kind of comic book character: one who doesn’t stand for anything.”Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman’s Sarky Gagathon Mocks the M.C.U. Back to Life [The Guardian]Peter Bradshaw appreciated the movie’s satirical bent while capturing a common complaint about it in a few words. “It’s amusing and exhausting,” he wrote.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Review: Reynolds and Jackman Return

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      The wisecracking semi-hero is back, but now he’s part of a bigger universe.“Disney’s so stupid,” Deadpool declares trollishly at the beginning of “Deadpool & Wolverine.” It’s the sort of jab — in this case, at the studio distributing the film we’re watching — that we’ve grown used to from this dude, a potty-mouthed exterminator in a face-obscuring suit vaguely reminiscent of Spider-Man. Not quite a hero, not quite anything else, Deadpool is an answer to the conflicted but upstanding superheroes of 21st-century Hollywood. He kills messily, he makes a lot of inappropriate jokes and, in an industry that practically decrees a profit-boosting PG-13 rating, his movies are always rated R.Despite first appearing in Marvel comics, Deadpool (played by Ryan Reynolds), a.k.a. Wade Wilson, also used to stand slightly outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But in the six years since his last big-screen appearance in “Deadpool 2,” the Merc with the Mouth has been shoehorned into the M.C.U., along with the X-Men, for reasons involving Disney’s 2019 acquisition of 20th Century Fox. (Which was promptly renamed 20th Century Studios, and you can be sure Deadpool will joke about that too.)Deadpool explains all this very quickly at the beginning of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” just to catch us up. He has a lot of expositional ground to cover, since he also has to clarify how this movie will avoid desecrating the memory of Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), a.k.a. Logan, who was laid to rest in the excellent eponymous swan song from 2017. “We’re not,” Deadpool announces. Deal with it.The first two Deadpool movies set out to skewer the conventions of superhero cinema, with “Deadpool” (2016) scrapping conventional opening credits for alternate text jabbing at tropes: “A British Villain,” “A Hot Chick,” “A Moody Teen,” “A C.G.I. Character” and also some words we can’t print here. Deadpool broke the fourth wall constantly, remarking to the audience about what was happening or about to happen, as well as the paltry budget of the film and the silliness of him, a minor and ridiculous character, being in a movie at all.But times sure have changed, and not just because those movies made a whole lot of money. Yes, “Deadpool & Wolverine” still features quips about residuals and digs at characters in DC’s rival comics universe, and a bunch of them made me chuckle. It still features Reynolds making fun of himself; it has some fun set pieces, clever sight gags, amusing surprises, left-field references and adoring pauses to admire Jackman’s biceps and abs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman Talk ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ and Their Careers

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      The two friends have learned a lot about being the stewards of major pop-culture characters, an education that led them to “Deadpool & Wolverine.”If there’s a magic formula for Hollywood success, “Deadpool & Wolverine” would appear to have refined it to a simple calculation: Just add Hugh Jackman’s “X-Men” superhero to the hit comic franchise anchored by Ryan Reynolds and reap the sure-to-be-lucrative dividends.So why did a film that’s projected to be the summer’s biggest live-action blockbuster prove so difficult to get off the ground?Though Reynolds had pitched a team-up to his close friend for years, Jackman initially resisted, preferring to let the well-reviewed “Logan” (2017) stand as his swan song with the gruff mutant Wolverine. And while the merger of Disney and Fox allowed Reynolds to set the third “Deadpool” movie starring his R-rated mercenary in the previously off-limits Marvel Cinematic Universe, he struggled to come up with a story that could capitalize on that opportunity. “It was just hard to find the thing that felt right,” Reynolds said.In August 2022, just as Reynolds and the director, Shawn Levy, debated putting their sequel on ice, Jackman placed a surprise call and told them he was willing to give his signature role one more go. “There’s parts of Wolverine that I scratched around and wanted to explore, but I wasn’t able to,” Jackman said. “In this film, there’s sides of him that I’ve always wanted to get out.”On a video call in late June, both men had plenty to say about the long arc of portraying and eventually becoming the steward of major pop-cultural characters. Reynolds waged an uphill battle to make the first “Deadpool” film (2016), which was greenlit only after leaked test footage became an internet sensation. Off its modest $58 million budget, the movie grossed $782.8 million worldwide and gave Reynolds his first real franchise.“I was an actor who was semi-well-known,” said Reynolds, who added jokingly, “I don’t know how you would phrase that without sounding like a dink. But I was 37 when ‘Deadpool’ had its pop-culture phenomenon moment, and I’m really grateful I was because I knew exactly how to enjoy it.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘IF’ Review: Invisible Friends, but Real Celebrity Cameos

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      The film is a slim story about a girl named Bea (Cailey Fleming) who helps a crank named Cal (Ryan Reynolds) play matchmaker. Oh, and Bradley Cooper is a glass of ice water.The big “IF” — as in “imaginary friend” — in John Krasinski’s treacly kids dramedy is a grizzly-sized purple goon who goes by the name Blue. The boy who conjured him was colorblind, he explains. Blue (voiced by Steve Carell) is one of dozens of dreamed-up creatures in Brooklyn who long for their now-grown BFFs to remember they exist.At the Memory Lane Retirement Community underneath Coney Island, there’s also a pink alligator (Maya Rudolph), a superhero dog (Sam Rockwell), a worn teddy (Louis Gossett Jr.), a retro cartoon butterfly (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), a robot (Jon Stewart), an astronaut (George Clooney), a glass of ice water (Bradley Cooper), a gummy bear (Amy Schumer), a unicorn (Emily Blunt), a flower (Matt Damon), a cat in an octopus costume (Blake Lively), a ghost (Matthew Rhys), a soap bubble (Awkwafina), some green slime (Keegan-Michael Key), and an invisible blob who the credits claim is none other than Brad Pitt.What’s more impressive: Krasinski’s imagination or the very real friends in his Rolodex?Most of these characters merely stroll through the frame to say hello, or whine to each other in group therapy. Yet these celebrity cameos take up about as much space as the plot, a gentle, slim story about an unflappable 12-year-old girl named Bea (Cailey Fleming) who helps a crank named Cal (Ryan Reynolds) play matchmaker for the lonely IFs.If — and this is a rhetorical if — you’re still traumatized by the last shot of Bing Bong, the forgotten imaginary friend in Pixar’s “Inside Out,” breathe easy. There’s no existential threat (or narrative tension) about what might happen if the goofy gang remains consigned to oblivion. Palling about with kids again just sounds nice.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More