EXCLUSIVE: It Ends with Us, the Justin Baldoni-directed film that stars Blake Lively and Baldoni, looks like its production shoot has ended until the resolution of the WGA strike. The decision was made Thursday, with less than half of the movie completed. The sole reason for the film halting was the picketing by WGA strikers.
That’s another in a growing list of movies and series shut down by picket lines that sister guilds like Teamsters and IATSE refuse to cross. As Deadline revealed earlier this week, the film’s shoot in parts of New Jersey was disrupted and a temporary halt called while the film’s producers at Wayfarer Studios argued that because they are co-financing a film that will be a negative pickup for signatory Sony Pictures, they are following WGA guidelines and should be allowed to continue.
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The WGA disagreed, sources said. This is where things are starting to get ugly and bitterness setting in as people who have nothing to do with the strike are put out of work, while the AMPTP and WGA negotiators aren’t even meeting right now. Sources said 140 or so are now out of jobs on It Ends With Us, an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestseller which Christy Hall adapted.
This has been going on since a first shut down on Monday, June 5, but crew members were delivered the news yesterday, in an e-mail delivered by Wayfarer and Justin Baldoni.
Subject: Production shutdown
“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.”
Everyone is getting their gear back so this does seem pretty permanent, at least until the strike ends and writers go back to work.
Said one crew member about the mood on the set when the email dropped: “It was a mixture — people were upset because they liked working with Justin. There was already tension about some ADs who’d been fired. People were sad but also respected the WGA picket situation. The more solitarily we can have with the WGA, making the producers talk to the writers and get them back to the negotiating table, the faster everyone will get back to work.”
This game of chicken is getting tiresome as the strike begins to empty restaurants and imperil other businesses that rely on the industry. So, WGA and AMPT, how about getting in a room and locking the door until a deal is made? There are real and thorny issues to be worked out, including residuals and the likelihood that the continued development and sophistication of AI programs will at least partly automate the writing of scripts and lessen the need for writers which theoretically holds appeal for signatories trying to impress Wall Street with cost-cutting maneuvers. But nothing good can happen until the sides sit across from each other and reach a compromise. Much of this will depend on the SAG-AFTRA situation, and people in town are guardedly optimistic the guild and AMPTP are finding some common ground. Stay tuned.
Nellie Andreeva contributed to this report.
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