Justin Baldoni Hires Crisis PR Manager amid “It Ends With Us” Cast Drama

Baldoni directed and stars in the newly released film opposite Blake Lively

It Ends With Us director and actor Justin Baldoni has hired crisis public relations manager Melissa Nathan of The Agency Group amid reports of drama with the cast, including his costar Blake Lively, a source familiar with the matter tells PEOPLE.

The film, based on the best-seller by Colleen Hoover, opened on Friday, Aug. 9.

At the New York premiere on Aug. 6, Baldoni posed his wife Emily but apart from the rest of the cast, which includes Lively, Brandon Sklenar, Isabela Ferrer and Jenny Slate. Baldoni also did not join the cast in introducing the film at the screening and has been noticeably absent from other group promotional appearances, including the London premiere.

In It Ends With Us, Baldoni and Lively play a couple whose relationship becomes abusive in nature.

Baldoni and Lively both have credits behind the camera, too.

Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, secured the rights to Hoover's book in 2019, years before Lively's casting was announced in January 2023, and is credited as an executive producer.

Lively, who has a producer credit, has praised her husband Ryan Reynolds for his creative contributions to the film.

Saying at the New York premiereLively said that her husband wrote a pivotal rooftop scene between Lily and Ryle, her and Baldoni's characters.

"The iconic rooftop scene, my husband actually wrote it. Nobody knows that but you now," Lively told E! News on the red carpet. "We help each other," she added. "He works on everything I do. I work on everything he does. So his wins, his celebrations are mine and mine are his. I mean, he's all over this film."

Related: It Ends with Us Cast Drama Explained: What Is Going on with Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni?

Speaking with PEOPLE, the film's screenwriter, Christy Hall, noted that the specific scene was "probably the trickiest one to tackle" because it is "perfect in the novel." She also said she wasn't aware Reynolds had contributed to the dialogue used in the final version of the sequence, but noticed a few new additions.

"All is not what it seems," a set source previously told PEOPLE. "There is much more to this story. The principal cast and [author] Colleen Hoover will have nothing to do with him."

It Ends with Us is now in theaters.

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