Release date confirmed for ‘It Ends With Us’ by Netflix
After having a blockbuster reception, Netflix has announced its release date for the drama It Ends With Us on the streaming service.
Based on the Colleen Hoover book of the same name, the story follows the relationship of Blake Lively‘s Lily Bloom and Justin Baldoni’s Ryle Kincaid as they become a romantic couple and eventually run into stumbling blocks in their relationship.
In a statement, Netflix announced that the movie will be heading to streaming services starting on December 9th, 2024. It also comes after the runaway success of the film, earning $350 million on its modest $25 million budget.
While the movie had elements of a traditional romance movie, the story has a darker side by confronting the couple’s shared history regarding domestic abuse. By the time the characters started understanding each other, they wanted to ensure that any type of cycle of abuse ended with them rather than trickling down to the next generation.
Baldoni, who also directed the film, said he was moved by Hoover’s story and wanted to make a movie that helped people. He told The Hollywood Reporter, “So often in our industry, we’re told we’re not curing cancer, we’re not saving lives, just making art, just making movies. To that, I say, well, I wonder if we’re making the right movies then.”
Despite the story largely being told from Lily’s perspective, Hoover has left the door open for a sequel when writing the book It Starts With Us. Given the success of the film, the next book offers a different look at the couple’s relationship by spending most of the time in Ryle’s mind as he tries to figure out where he fits into their relationship.
The film’s success also coincided with a cinematic competition between Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds. Released on the same weekend as Marvel’s Deadpool and Wolverine, both films were given massive praise from audiences, with It Ends With Us earning $50 million in its opening weekend, next to the Marvel juggernaut’s $53 million.
Granted, Lively was not showing any major sense of competition, given the fact that she also starred in Deadpool and Wolverine for a brief cameo as Lady Deadpool during the film’s climax, alongside Matthew McConaughey as a Western take on the character and Reynolds and Lively’s children as different iterations of the ‘Merc with a Mouth’. Despite its arrival on Netflix, there has been no word on whether It Starts With Us is in production.