A bombshell email from Blake Lively to Matt Damon—now public—paints It Ends With Us as a battlefield where the star claims she saved the movie from a director she says had “zero experience,” “no taste,” and an “enormous ego.”
‘This Movie Nearly Killed Me’—The Email That Changes Everything
In a May 17, 2024 message unsealed January 20, Lively tells Damon she rewrote the entire script, directed every actor, and was shut out of post—then forced into a bruising 10-day editing sprint against a months-long director’s cut.
The Script Takeover
Lively writes that director Justin Baldoni—also her co-star—simultaneously acted as producer, financier, and studio head “with zero experience.” She claims the cinematographer repeatedly asked her for direction when he “couldn’t get anything from him.”
The Editing ‘Bake-Off’
After being excluded from post-production, Lively says she was handed a mere 10 days to assemble a competing cut while Baldoni’s version had been brewing since July. She slept “about an hour and a half each night,” calling the rushed screening her “first and only feedback” opportunity.
Ryan Reynolds’ Punchline
Also on the chain, Reynolds jokes the shoot was “one of the all-time zingers on and off set” and teases, “One day we’ll make a movie about the movie.” He offers Damon a Pix login with “zero pressure,” underscoring how surreal the behind-the-scenes chaos had become.
Legal Fallout
The email is now evidence in Lively’s December 2024 sexual-harassment and retaliation suit against Baldoni, set for trial May 18. A federal judge previously dismissed Baldoni’s $400 million countersuit.
Why It Matters
The filings flip the standard press narrative of a glossy romance adaptation, exposing a star-producer who claims she had to seize creative control to protect the story’s domestic-violence themes from an inexperienced director. Studios watching the case may rethink how they balance multi-hyphenate creatives and star producers on sensitive IP.
Stay locked on onlytrustedinfo.com for the fastest, most authoritative breakdown of the next bombshell filing—before the gavel drops in May.
