EXCLUSIVE: The WGA pickets has at least temporarily shuttered It Ends with Us, a movie that has been shooting in various locations that include Weekawken and Jersey City, New Jersey. Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni are starring and Baldoni is directing the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel, which Christy Hall adapted. The film was first picketed and shut down on Monday, June 5, but Baldoni and his cohorts at Wayfarer Studios are making the case that even though Sony Pictures will be the distributor, Wayfarer is on the hook for co-financing the modestly budgeted film and that should be enough for it to be left alone. Those talks continue.
On the day it shut down, It Ends With Us was supposed to lens at a park in Jersey City. The picketing led to an attempt to shoot a scene with a paddle boat at the Liberty Harbor Marina, but the pickets followed them and shooting was scrapped for the day. We’re told the film did film last Wednesday through Friday because WGA called off picketing because of poor air quality.
This week, we heard the Teamsters reportedly crossed the picket line but IATSE crew members did not, which shut down production. There was a brief meeting with the crew outside of the location after which they were asked to go to base camp for an in-person meeting. While en route, the crew members got a text asking them whether they are ready to work under any circumstances. The majority were not willing to cross a picket line. At the in-person meeting, they were told production has been shut down for the day.
The production is taking this day by day, as the argument is that It Ends With Us being co-financed by Wayfarer should warrant some consideration. Neither the studio nor Wayfarer would comment.
Meanwhile, Deadline is told that web reports that Mission: Impossible 8 have been postponed by the WGA strike are untrue. We’re told that every effort right now is going toward promoting Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning, the first installment of a two-part storyline. Paramount opens the Skydance film opens July 12, and evidently an article by Empire Magazine on director Christopher McQuarrie was misinterpreted. It mentioned these films were challenged by the Covid pandemic and the WGA strike. That led some internet outlets to make the leap that the film won’t shoot because of the latter circumstance. That isn’t the case, we’re told. Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie are busy promoting the film, and that has always been the plan. We’ll see what happens when they’re done and want to shoot the second movie, we’ll see but that is a ways off. Hopefully, the labor stalemate will be over by then.