Justin Baldoni SaysIt Ends with UsIs for 'That One Person' Who 'Doesn't Go Back Home' to an Abusive Partner (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively in ‘It Ends With Us’.Photo:Nicole Rivelli

Nicole Rivelli

Director-starJustin Baldoniis hoping his new movie serves a higher purpose.

Book-to-screen adaptationIt Ends With Us, in theaters Aug. 9, tells the story ofBlake Lively’s Lily Bloom, a woman facing domestic abuse and choosing to break its cycle. Baldoni, 40, wants commercial success for the film, of course. But his bigger priority is making it resonate for anyone “who goes to see this movie with her friends and doesn’t go back home.”

“It’s that metric that oftentimes goes unnoticed,” Baldoni tells PEOPLE exclusively. “If it’s just a big commercial success, that’s on one side of it. The other side of it, for both [production company] Wayfarer Studios and myself is… it’s about that one person who’s in a similar situation to Lily.”

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in ‘It Ends With Us’.Nicole Rivelli

That mission is “a double bottom line,” he adds; after co-creating digital documentary seriesMy Last Days, the filmmaker launched Wayfarer Studios to make “very commercial movies, but also films that could touch people’s lives.”

A big-screen adaptation, he remembers thinking, “could be such an empowering film” especially if designed as a rallying cry for women. Male audiences have “big, tentpole action films, and there really aren’t that many event films for women. But we saw what happened withBarbie.”

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Other future audience members who inspired Baldoni? His children. While filming, he says, “I was thinking about [Maiya Grace] all the time. But I was also thinking about my son [Maxwell Roland-Samuel]. I don’t think this is a movie that’s just for women, I think this is a movie for everybody.”

Spoiler alert: It’s when Lily is newly a mother at the end ofIt Ends With Uswhen she resolves to leave her abusive husband. “She makes the choice when she meets her child,” Baldoni points out.

Similarly, “when my daughter was born and I held her for the first time, it felt like my birth,” he says. “And then my son was born, and it feels like every day I’m presented a mirror. To have that mirror held up to my face every day is the biggest challenge and the biggest blessing of my life.”

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go tothehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.

source: people.com