Summary

• Despite mixed reviews, “It Ends with Us” has grossed $80 million on a $25 million budget, making it a box office hit.
• Female audiences and Colleen Hoover fans are credited with the film’s success, surpassing expectations.
• Blake Lively’s star power may have contributed to the film’s success, despite actors’ diminished box office draw.

It Ends with Us has been doing really well at the box office, despite receiving mixed reviews from critics, so how did this Blake Lively romantic drama manage to become so successful? Adapted from the 2016 Colleen Hoover novel of the same name, It Ends with Us revolves around aspiring entrepreneur Lily Bloom – played by Lively – who’s struggling to overcome her childhood trauma. Everything seems to turn around when she meets a charming neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, played by the film’s director, Justin Baldoni, but he starts to remind her of her abusive father.

The movie has been met with a mixed response from critics, earning a “rotten” score of 59% (although it’s just 1% below the “fresh” threshold) on Rotten Tomatoes. Reviews have praised the cast’s performances for their commitment and sincerity, but criticized the script for its clunky dialogue. It effectively captures the melodramatic tone of the source material, but according to some critics, that’s not a good thing. But in spite of its less-than-stellar critical reception, It Ends with Us has been a massive success at the box office. How did it become such a hit?

How Much It Ends With Us Has Made At The Box Office Compared To Its Budget

It Ends with Us has grossed $80 million on a $25 million budget

In this past weekend, It Ends with Us opened in the no. 2 spot at the domestic box office, placing just behind Lively’s husband’s Marvel blockbuster Deadpool & Wolverine. In its first three days, It Ends with Us has raked in $80 million at the box office, well above its production budget of $25 million. The movie was initially projected to gross $23-30 million in its opening weekend, but it ended up blowing those estimations out of the water. It landed in that projection window on its first day when it made $24 million (including $7 million from Thursday-night previews).

The general rule of thumb is that a movie needs to gross around 2.5 times its budget to turn a profit. It Ends with Us has sailed past the break-even point in its first weekend alone. In just three days, the movie has made more than three times its budget. At a time when it’s near-impossible to get audiences out to theaters and star-studded studio tentpoles like The Fall Guy are bombing left and right – not to mention Borderlands, which made a truly embarrassing amount this past weekend – the box office success of It Ends with Us is truly impressive.

It Ends with Us
was written and produced by
Daddio
director Christy Hall.

It Ends With Us’ Box Office Is Thanks To Female Audiences & Colleen Hoover

Hoover has a huge fan base and women are a huge demographic

The box office success of It Ends with Us boils down to Colleen Hoover fans and female audiences in general. Hoover has a massive fan base; her books have sold tens of millions of copies in an era when the publishing industry is in a state of massive decline. It Ends with Us is one of Hoover’s most popular novels. It’s sold over a million copies worldwide and been translated into more than 20 different languages. In the early 2020s, it saw a resurgence in popularity, thanks to its prevalence in TikTok content.

But the box office success of It Ends with Us goes beyond just fans of the book. There is clearly an audience for movies that are targeted at a more female demographic – just look at the billion-dollar success of Barbie – even if that’s not always at the forefront of the studios’ minds. The studios tend to focus on more male-driven fare like Deadpool & Wolverine and The Instigators, but the blockbuster success of It Ends with Us, Barbie, and the Fifty Shades films prove that the female audience shows up when there’s a movie for them.

How Big A Draw Was Blake Lively For It Ends With Us?

Actors aren’t much of a box office draw anymore

The days when an A-list star’s name could bring a crowd to a movie are long gone. These days, audiences are more enticed by a familiar I.P. than a familiar actor. But Lively may have been partly responsible for It Ends with Us’ success. Her casting was divisive for book fans, but she is a well-known name. Her success at the box office has been a little mixed, with both hits and flops to her name, although she did very well with A Simple Favor, which is perhaps the last fair comparison.

Gossip Girl remains a staple of pop culture and Lively has been a headline name for a while now alongside Ryan Reynolds, so it’s possible that her star power brought in some of the audience for It Ends with Us. The buzz surrounding Lively’s appearance as the Ladypool variant in Deadpool & Wolverine may have helped to boost her star power just before the release of It Ends with Us. A sappy romantic drama starring Lively arriving right after an R-rated superhero comedy starring her husband has created a sort of mini-Barbenheimer for 2024.

Why It Ends With Us’ Mixed Reviews Didn’t Hurt It

This isn’t the kind of movie where reviews matter

While the overwhelmingly negative reviews for Borderlands have undoubtedly impacted its box office performance, the mixed reviews for It Ends with Us haven’t stopped it from becoming a huge hit. That’s because It Ends with Us isn’t the kind of movie where the reviews matter all that much. It’s the kind of movie that people wanted to see and make up their own minds about – especially book readers. Romantic dramas usually receive mixed-to-negative reviews, except on very rare occasions, so fans of the genre have learned to just tune out the critics.

How Much Will It Ends With Us Make At The Box Office?

It could end up passing $100 million just at the domestic box office

It Ends with Us’ $80 million opening is a great sign for its box office future. It’s looking like its legs will be just as strong as Deadpool & Wolverine, with positive word-of-mouth spreading from the viewers who watched it in its opening weekend. Given its strong $50 million opening at the domestic box office, it could end up passing $100 million just domestically. That would only be a 2x multiplier, so it could go a lot higher than that. In terms of its global box office take, it could top $200 million.

It Ends With Us’ Box Office Is A Good Sign For The Sequel

It Starts with Us movie adaptation incoming

The fact that It Ends with Us has done so well at the box office is a promising sign for its potential sequel. Hoover published a sequel to the novel, It Starts with Us, in 2022. Now that It Ends with Us is a bona fide hit and it’s already turned a profit in three days, there’s a good chance that the sequel will get made. Hoover wrote It Starts with Us as a thank-you to fans of the first book; Lively could make the sequel as a thank-you to the audience that made It Ends with Us a hit.