In front of a live audience on June 23 at Book Bonanza, Hoover’s annual book festival hosted in Grapevine, Texas, Colleen Hoover discussed the much anticipated book-to-screen adaptation in an interview with Jenna Bush Hager. Hoover is “extremely happy” with the film adaptation of “It Ends With Us,” and she hopes her fans will be, too.
Hoover has written numerous bestsellers, “It Ends With Us” being one among them. The novel, which Hoover claims was inspired by her mother and dealt with domestic violence and the violence cycle, was written.
Lily, a florist who had an abusive father as a child, is the main character of the novel. She gets attracted to Ryle Kincaid, a surgeon with whom she develops an abusive relationship. Her old flame Atlas Corrigan presents her with a different opportunity and a possible exit from the abuse that she is experiencing.
Hoover claims she entered the filmmaking process “a little blind” and experienced travel delays getting to the New Jersey set, claiming that she got sick because of a stomach virus the day she was supposed to film her cameo scene.
Also Read: How To Read Colleen Hoover’s Best Books In Order?
She identifies as a “realist” as opposed to an “optimist” and stated that she anticipated the movie to be a “failure” from the beginning as a result. Hoover had already noticed the early online backlash by that point. The movie’s production has currently been put on hold, and it appears that its cancellation is not too far off. But what really caused the filming process to halt, especially when the film had such immense hype?
Online Controversies Surrounding the Film
The decision to cast Blake Lively as Lily Bloom, the 23-year-old redhead protagonist of the book, sparked debate among fans. Some thought it was a good choice, while others thought she was too old for the role at 35. In a similar vein, Justin Baldoni, who plays Ryle, is 39, whereas he is 30 in the novel.
In the books, Lily is extremely young; hence, Hoover insisted on making the characters older for the film, for which she gave a solid reason. She claimed that when she was writing the best-selling book, the new adult genre was quite popular and that most books had “college-age characters” since that is what readers preferred and wanted to read. “I had no idea that neurosurgeons attended medical school for 50 years. There are no neurosurgeons in their 20s,” she claims.
While filming the movie, she had the chance to correct this mistake. She decided to age the characters out when she started filming since she thought that she made a mistake when writing the novel. She confessed, “So that’s my fault,” realizing she had made a genuine error.
Also Read: It Ends With Us: The Viral, Tear-Jerker Book Is Getting Adapted Into A Movie
Fans have also ridiculed Blake’s Lily costumes quite harshly. Regarding one of Lively’s costumes, a TikTok user said, “This feels like a prank.” According to Hoover, she doesn’t remember describing how the outfits of the characters should be. In fact, she doesn’t really care what they wear as long as the scene is well-crafted.
In her head, it’s all about the conversation that the characters are having and the storyline of the film. She went on to clarify that the pictures that were being circulated on the internet were completely out of context, and all everyone’s really seen are a few random fits, and she is not really worried about the criticism that the film is receiving in that aspect.
The main reason behind the halt in the shooting process
The production shoot for the Justin Baldoni-directed movie, in which he and Blake Lively have significant roles, has been postponed until the end of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike. This choice was made on Thursday, with filming being less than halfway through.
The film’s suspension was caused by the inability to convince the WGA that Wayfarer Studios’ status as a co-financier was sufficient to deem that the project was within WGA criteria, despite the fact that the movie is not a positive pickup for signatory, Sony Pictures.
While the film’s producers tried to convince the WGA, the film’s shoot in some of New Jersey was halted temporarily. It was reported that the WGA disagreed. This is unavoidable strike-related shrapnel, and given that the AMPTP and WGA negotiators aren’t even talking right now, the strike is probably going to continue.
On Christy Hall’s adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel It Ends With Us, sources claim that 140 or so people have lost their employment for the time being.
Also Read: How The WGA-AMPTP Talks Broke Down And Brought Hollywood To A Halt
Although this has been going on since the first shutdown on Monday, June 5, the crew only learned of it yesterday when Wayfarer and Justin Baldoni sent them an email. “Due to the ongoing WGA strike and the lost days we have experienced due to picketing, we must make the difficult decision to temporarily shut down production.
We want to express our deepest gratitude for your incredible patience and unwavering dedication throughout this challenging period.”
Since both the cast and crew members are halting their work, it appears that this development will continue at least until the writers’ strike is over and they resume work, which we hope is soon enough.
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