YouGov Behavioral - It Ends With Us, Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni - US Sentiment and Popularity Report

YouGov Behavioral - It Ends With Us, Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni - US Sentiment and Popularity Report

Leveraging YouGov Behavioral’s insights into online search & social, this report explores audience reception to It Ends With Us, as well as delving into the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni media frenzy.

Key Findings Include:

• Notable volume of comments stemmed from viewers reacting positively to the film, despite the surrounding drama. The film addressing the topic of DA/DV and its message about breaking generational patterns drove high emotional resonance and positive reception.
• Baldoni and Lively’s positive sentiment levels began to significantly diverge 4 days before the premiere of It Ends With Us – with positive audience sentiment spiking for Baldoni and beginning to fall incrementally for Lively.
• During pre-release marketing in the last half of July, conversation indicates expanding awareness of the movie was driving individuals to read the original novel for the first time. However, verbiage indicates a notable share of the expanding awareness was amongst individuals who knew little about the film’s premise beyond it being a Romance.
• Following the film’s release, the “tone deaf” marketing combined with the emerging awareness of the movie’s premise featuring DA/DV resulted in a notable volume of commenters saying they wouldn’t see the movie due to the assumption that the film wouldn’t do justice to the DA/DV themes in the book.
• The media frenzy surrounding It Ends With Us has culminated in high positive perception of Justin Baldoni and high negative perception of Blake Lively.
• High desire to see “class act” Justin Baldoni’s cut of the movie, with many commenters who have seen Baldoni’s interviews addressing the topic of DA/DV saying they were only going because of him.