What was once old has become completely new at the box office, with the booming success of Sony and Wayfarer Studios’ It ends with us which leads to a surprising 50 million US dollars this weekend.
Nobody would have predicted this a few weeks ago, the film was expected to make around $15 million, and it was only in the final stages of this week that it became clear that the film, starring and produced by Blake Lively and co-directed by Justin Baldoni, would climb to over $40 million. Which makes sense, considering how films – especially those aimed at women – are marketed in the final stages before their theatrical release to fuel the fan base.
Young female moviegoers who decide to buy a movie ticket are often selected at the last minute by studio marketing teams and flock to the cinema when there is an event for them. It ends with us 68% of viewers were in the under 35 demo, with 84% of women snapping up tickets. Screen Engine/Comscores PostTrak also shows that 60% of viewers It ends with us bought their tickets on the same day.
A popular novel of female literature that comes to the screen is of course not a novel, it is just that the subgenre post Fifty shades of grey has largely turned to streaming. What this weekend proves, however, is that the perfect combination of star, IP and pure date can still lure underserved moviegoing audiences out of the house. Thirty percent told PostTrak they came for Lively, while another 30 percent said it was because of the subject matter, which is a book.
Sony, following post-Covid successes such as the romantic comedy starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell Everyone except you and the Summer 2022 Sleeper The song of the crayfish has once again fooled the town and proven that there is still an appetite for old-school genres, in this case the romantic drama.
It ends with us is not the most vivid story dealing with the subject of domestic violence. This film’s success is due to Hoover’s feverish fan base on BookTok, with over 2 billion views on her TikTok hashtag. The novel was published by Atria Books in August 2016 and had sold over 1 million copies worldwide by 2019. It ends with us experienced a huge boom during the pandemic thanks to TikTok and was the best-selling print book in 2022 with a 135-week run on the New York Times Bestseller list until the end of 2023.
Wayfarer Studios secured the rights to the novel, which resulted in a co-financing agreement with Sony. Baldoni and Lively worked closely with Hoover on the film adaptation of the book, with the author serving as EP.
Lively, we hear, was “a creative masterpiece” as a producer and film marketing guru to ensure that the film did not end up like a Hallmark movie that was reduced to its domestic violence theme. No wonder Baldoni was cast in a EW Interview that when it comes to a sequel to It ends with us, “I think Blake Lively is ready to direct.”
For the gossip Girl Alum, It ends with us was about so much more, about love lost and found again and the many aspects of a woman’s relationship with a confident man. Lively rolled up her sleeves not only for the edits, but also was involved in the editing of the film, all aspects of the film’s marketing, led the social media campaign and threw herself into every aspect of it, right down to a curated BTS playlist and the It ends with us Spotify shelf.
I’ve heard that Lively wasn’t thrilled with the first cut of the trailer and even had a hand in editing it. Sony executives agreed that Lively’s instincts for the trailer were right from the start. The key to the spot was the use of the Taylor Swift song “My Tears Ricochet,” which I understand Lively got from her best friend, the pop singer. For some rival film marketing executives, it was the use of Swift alone that made the difference and It ends with us from the noisy summer herd.
Sony unveiled the first trailer at a garden party on the Culver City lot with #BookTok and Bookstagram, followed by a Q&A with Hoover and Baldoni. The first trailer garnered 128.1 million views in its first 24 hours, making it the most successful female-focused film trailer in years, surpassing the views of images like Wicked – Part 1 (112.9 million views), Barbie (101.6 million views), Taylor Swift: Era Tour (96.2 million views) and The miracles (90.6 million views). It ends with us The trailer has been viewed 319 million times.
Above all, however, one cannot ignore the date that Sony has chosen for the release of the film, as this is a film that is wisely built on the heat of the biggest film of the year to date, the billion-dollar box office Deadpool and Wolverine. The Baldoni-directed film was originally scheduled to open on February 9 of this year, then June 21, before being pushed back to the two-week postseason. Deadpool and Wolverine. It was a stroke of genius from Sony’s sales and marketing that allowed Lively to quickly promote It ends with us during the perfect storm of Deadpool and Wolverines press tour; the actress plays an important but secret role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film.
This enabled the clever stunt of getting Ryan Reynolds, his mother and Hugh Jackman to finally and hysterically It ends with us Press release: This Instagram post has almost 1 million likes.
What was also fuelled here was Deadpool and Wolverine And It ends with us was the first fight between a star couple since the late summer of 1990, when Bruce Willis Die Hard 2 and Demi Moore had Spirit. Lively has nearly 50 million followers on social media, while Reynolds has over 128 million followers. Social media analytics firm RelishMix reported that It ends with us attracted 337.4 million followers across TikTok, Facebook, X, YouTube and Instagram, which is “2.5 times the typical figures for romantic dramas and romantic comedies and fueled by Ryan Reynolds’ social machine with Blake Lively’s fans and, of course, Colleen Hoover’s 4.3 million fans.”
The social media chat was electric before Friday. “Conversation on It ends with us Reviews have been positive, with fans expressing their excitement, emotional investment and appreciation for the adaptation of the beloved novel. Chatter notes, “It brings me to tears to see the characters I imagined while reading become reality.” Not only are fans “beyond thrilled” with Blake Lively’s performance, but the set has exceeded all expectations. “Goosebumps! I have goosebumps! I wasn’t expecting that. The place looks perfect,” reports RelishMix.
Plus, there is no such thing as bad publicity, and the behind-the-scenes drama that came out at the last minute before It ends with us‘ premiere, certainly didn’t hurt this weekend’s ticket sales. Apparently Baldoni and Lively weren’t seeing eye to eye during post-production, as the former didn’t attend the press conference, didn’t take photos of the cast at the NYC premiere, and Lively didn’t follow him on social media. All of this takes the film’s promo machine to a meta level, because just like their on-screen roles, Lively and Baldoni have their own frictions. Some have equated the off-screen melodrama here with It ends with us to that of Don’t worry, darling‘s toxic environment. You could argue that this film was its own beast, with Oliva Wilde’s “Miss Flo” video, the filmmaker’s back-and-forth with original cast member Shia LaBeouf, and Harry Styles’ feud with Chris Pine at the Venice Film Festival.
On the press tour for It ends with us On a whole different level, Hoover and Lively were at the Book Bonanza book fair in Dallas in June, where the duo held a question-and-answer session in front of 2,000 attendees. Lively surprised the audience with a film screening.
There were also several content shoots with Lively, Hoover, Baldoni and Brandon Sklenar that covered different aspects of the book (flowers, hot chocolate cookies, crafts like putting flower patches on jeans), as well as direct-to-camera content (speaking directly to fans and newbies) in addition to behind-the-scenes looks on social media.
The multi-pronged social media campaign included stunts such as bringing Lively’s character Lily Bloom’s flower shop to life at Los Angeles’ Westfield Century City mall. The recreation was open for a month and drew large crowds of people. The venue was used as a content generator for influencers and a backdrop, as well as a venue for press and tastemakers. The flower shop became a destination for after-screenings following the film’s screenings on BookTok and Bookstagram. Sony also partnered with Meta’s Instagram and Threads book division to host a live-streamed Q&A with Lively and Hoover and a screening of the picture for fans on their @creators pages (18 million followers).
The studio also collaborated to bring Lily Bloom’s little flower to life through a custom piece with Lively in a Tiny Talk series:
Not all book readers are moviegoers, and Sony reached the casual moviegoer through major platforms such as Amazon, Goodreads, TikTok, Meta, YouTube, and Hudson Airport bookstores.
Sony focused on the character Lily and her artistic nature and used the relevant social communities to encourage artists to collaborate with the It ends with us Channels and talent to create unique themed content on wood burning, sculpting, portrait painting, flower pot design, cakes, hot chocolate cookies, dressmaking and even woodworking.
This sculpture of a flower pot from Bloom’s flower shop has been viewed over 2 million times:
…while Tinkeke Younger baked with Lively and Sklenar, a clip that garnered 4.6 million views.
Flower arranging also became increasingly popular on social media, as did dressing Lively’s figure in floral dresses and patchwork jeans.
Below are influencers wearing their floral prints:
It is not unusual for a star like Lively to be closely involved in a film’s campaigns. Tom Cruise is a regular and has a great influence on the promotion of his films, while Reynolds is an integral part of Dead Pool‘s marketing machine; the actor’s studio and digital marketing agency Maximum Effort were heavily involved in the curation Deadpool and Wolverine‘s list of advertising partners.
A studio insider beamed at Lively’s detailed approach to the picture’s campaign: “I wish she would work for us full time.”
