It Ends With Us- A Successful Marketing Fail

Kaitlyn Kim
Staff Writer

In a world boosted by our desire for the new and trendy, most entertainment falls in between two identified categories: the famous and the flops. For movies in particular, a lack of notable success leaves them floating in limbo, neither noticeable nor remembered for long before the world moves onto the next viral trend. However, once in a blue moon, there is a franchise that lands perfectly between these two categories, the newest example being called It Ends With Us. It Ends With Us is a film adaptation of the namesake book written by Colleen Hoover (who on her own, is controversial). However, the main topic which raised this to a famous movie flop is its marketing.

Although one may not have read all 380+ pages of the original It Ends With Us, the main buzzword surrounding the movie is “domestic violence”. The protagonist, Lily Blossom Bloom, has a background strongly connected with the topic of domestic violence following both her past and her narrative as a character. Growing up, Lily was witness to the abusive dynamic between her mother and her father. Having seen how her mother was treated, Lily expresses the set-in-stone belief that she would never find herself victim to a relationship the way her mother was. However, fate would choose otherwise, as the romance between neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid continues. During the relationship between Lily and Ryle, his demeanor would flicker from the man Lily thought she knew to a physically and emotionally abusive man. The book stands to answer the question: why doesn’t she just leave him? with a level of nuance that leaves the book generally well-received.

Given the heavy themes of the novel, marketing is absolutely crucial to showing how the movie intends to respect the survivors of domestic violence, however, this was a fumble on an epic scale.

Majority of this marketing failure falls upon the shoulders of one Blake Lively, an elite celebrity but also the leading actress of the movie. As the woman playing Lily Blossom Bloom herself, Lively approached marketing and interviews with a level of light-hearted playfulness that felt wildly inappropriate given the nature of the film. Lively promoted it in “Barbie” fashion, acting as

though the film itself was a culture shock that would empower women the same way women felt during the Barbie film last summer. Not only did this feel thoughtless and arrogant, but it was very misleading in its approach. Comments on Lively’s recent posts displayed utter confusion when seeing her interviews because they were under the interpretation that the movie was “romantic” and “girly” rather than a symbol of domestic violence survivors and their strength.

In an odd way, this marketing failure enabled It Ends With Us to reach huge audiences on social media, purely so that people could experience the difference between the attitude of Blake Lively and the attitude of the film. Despite the strong disdain for the movie online, It Ends With Us amassed more than $309 million in global ticket sales and has led Colleen Hoover to sign another book-to-movie adaptation, Reminders of Him in February 2026.

Contact Kaitlyn at kimkaitl@shu.edu