From BookTok to the big screen: Everything you need to know about ‘It Ends With Us’ starring Blake Lively
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH SONY PICTURES RELEASING
WORDS BY DAISY HENRY
The wait is almost over.
There’s almost nothing as exciting as hearing the news that one of your favourite books is being brought to life on the screen. When adaptations are done right, they’re so right.
Dolly Alderton’s Everything I Know About Love, Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Daisy Jones and the Six and of course, Sally Rooney’s Normal People have all been given the book-to-screen treatment, and managed to strike the almost impossible balance of satisfying both old and new fans.
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Looking ahead, things are just as exciting. Deborah Levy’s novel Hot Milk is set to become a film starring Emma Mackey, while the rights to Michelle Zauner’s memoir Crying in H Mart were acquired in 2021. That said, nothing has been quite as highly anticipated as the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s global phenomenon, It Ends With Us.
It Ends With Us was the highest-selling print book in the United States in 2023 and in Australia, Hoover has dominated the country’s bestseller charts, breaking records in the process. Her unprecedented popularity is largely thanks to a very dedicated and active BookTok fanbase (the #CollenHoover hashtag has reached over 5.1 billion views on TikTok), while over on Goodreads, It Ends With Us has raked up over 3.5 million ratings.
It goes without saying, though, Blake Lively has had a strong hand in the buzz over the upcoming release. A producer on the film, she plays its protagonist Lily Bloom and has already proven herself the perfect casting choice to bring Lily’s warmth and energy to life (we love this nod to her character’s career as a florist).
With Blake as the lead, the film’s trailer reached unprecedented numbers upon its release. Over 128 million people watched the teaser in its first 24 hours, making it the biggest recent debut for a female event movie (for comparison, the Barbie trailer hit just over 101 million views within the same period). The trailer is set against the musical backdrop of Taylor Swift’s ‘My Tears Ricochet’, a song choice that Blake noted “made a lot of sense”.
Alongside Blake, the film has an exciting lineup with Brandon Sklenar as Lily’s childhood friend and first love, Atlas Corrigan, and Justin Baldoni as both the film’s director and Lily’s volatile love interest, Ryle Kincaid. With only a few weeks until the August 8 release, excitement for the cinema release is at fever pitch with the book’s fanbase having grown well beyond BookTok.
Inspired by the story of Hoover’s mother, It Ends With Us follows Lily as she moves to Boston in the wake of her father’s death to open her own florist business. It’s there she meets the charming and impressive Ryle Kincaid, a neurosurgeon with a fear of commitment.
Their relationship is intense, and Lily quickly starts noticing unsettling parallels between Ryle’s behaviour and her parents’ tumultuous and abusive relationship. Things only get more complicated when Lily reconnects with her high-school boyfriend, Atlas Corrigan.
Book-to-screen adaptations can be hard to nail, and there was some initial hesitation on the decision to age-up the story’s main characters (which Hoover has said she is on board with), as well as concern about how to appropriately portray a story about domestic violence without glamorising abusive relationships. It Ends With Us is an important novel that deals with a difficult issue with deep care and insight, and sparked millions of conversations worldwide about the nuance of domestic violence. The team behind the film adaptation have crafted an equally important, and ultimately empowering, movie that tracks Lily as she overcomes a difficult past and finds her own inner strength.
There’s also always the age-old divide when a book is adapted for the screen between new fans and dedicated readers. “Readers tend to always want to read the book first. I completely understand that, but I feel like this adaptation has stayed so true to the book that it’s actually either or, whatever you prefer,” Hoover told ET Online. “I think that you’ll be happy if you watch the movie and then go into the book or vice versa.”
The countdown for the It Ends With Us release is officially on, and there’s no better ritual in winter than escaping the weather and cosying up to see a movie on the big screen at the cinema. Plus, getting in quick to see it is a good way to beat the spoilers. If you’re looking to fill time while you wait, Hoover has over 20 books you can binge in the meantime.
See it only in cinemas from August 8. Buy tickets here.
