The controversy around It Ends With Us has helped push the film past the $100 million mark at the domestic box office. If nothing else, I hope this is more evidence that Hollywood needs to make more old-school “women’s films.” In the Golden Age of Hollywood, IEWU would have starred Lana Turner or Gene Tierney and it would have been seen as a film purely for the female audience. Meanwhile, it’s been relatively quiet in recent days as far as drama between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. Last week, Baldoni hired a crisis management team to help him with whatever Blake and Ryan Reynolds were trying to do to him. Sony also made a very public move to back Blake late last week, but that came after widespread backlash to Blake on social media. People keep “finding” old Lively interviews where she said wildly offensive sh-t or she was just plain rude and unpleasant. So what now? Well, Blake’s other male costar Brandon Sklenar has some thoughts.

“It Ends With Us” actor Brandon Sklenar has taken to Instagram to defend author Colleen Hoover and “the women of this cast” against online backlash that has swirled around the movie in the lead up to and the aftermath of its theatrical release. Rumors have circulated alleging that a riff occurred between leading lady Blake Lively and the film’s director and co-star Justin Baldoni during post-production over the final cut of the movie. Neither actor has addressed the rumors.

“I wanted to take a minute and address all this stuff swirling online,” Sklenar wrote on social media. “Colleen and the women of this cast stand for hope, perseverance, and for women choosing a better life for themselves. Vilifying the women who put so much of their heart and soul into making this film because they believe so strongly in its message seems counterproductive and detracts from what this film is about.”

“It is, in fact, the opposite of the point,” Sklenar continued. “What may or may not have happened behind the scenes does not and hopefully should not detract from what our intentions were in making this film. It’s been disheartening to see the amount of negativity being projected online. Trust me when I tell you, there isn’t a single person Involved in the making of this film that was not aware of the responsibility we had in making this. A responsibility to all the women who have experienced generational trauma, domestic abuse or struggle with looking in the mirror and loving who they see.”

“This movie is a harsh reality check for the men who need to get their sh-t together and take responsibility for themselves and their actions,” he added. “This film is meant to inspire. It’s meant to validate and recognize. It’s meant to instill hope. It’s meant to build courage and help people feel less alone. Ultimately it’s meant to spread love and awareness. It is not meant to once again, make the women the ‘bad guy,’ let’s move beyond that together.”

[From Variety]

“Vilifying the women who put so much of their heart and soul into making this film because they believe so strongly in its message”– Blake believes in the “domestic violence is bad” message so much she used the film to launch her haircare brand AND her liquor company sponsored screenings of IEWU. Like, I understand what he’s saying and I agree that, in general, we should avoid blaming and vilifying women for every single thing. But there’s blame and then there’s just a small slice of social media accountability. A week full of people clowning on Blake for her well-documented history of being rude and awful? To me, that’s just keeping people on their toes. That’s what’s been interesting about the “backlash” to Blake in the past two weeks – it’s been a long time coming AND she will be perfectly f–king fine. She’s not a g–damn plantation damsel in distress. She acted like an a–hole, she got called out, and in three months, everyone will have forgotten.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.