Why It Ends With Us was forced to change characters ages in the movie

9 August 2024, 10:11

Why was Lily Bloom and Ryle Kincaid's ages different in the movie? Author Colleen Hoover explains important change.

It Ends With Us featuring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni is hitting cinemas across the country but there's one big change from book to screen that everyone is still talking about.

A hugely popular book, which has the sequel It Starts With Us, author Colleen Hoover has found herself having to defend the movie cast after readers were keen to point out the glaring error in ages.

With main characters Lily Bloom just 23 years old in the book, and Ryle Kincaid just 28, fans were confused over the castings of Blake, 35, and Justin 40.

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Following a huge amount of backlash over the book to movie change, author Colleen has explained exactly what happened.

Why were Lily Bloom and Ryle Kincaid's ages changed in the movie, It Ends With Us?

With growing concerns the cast were too old to play the main characters, author Colleen revealed in an interview with Today that she made the decision on purpose.

She explained: "Back when I wrote 'It Ends With Us,' the new adult (genre) was very popular. You were writing college-age characters. That's what I was contracted to do. I made Lily very young. I didn't now that neurosurgeons went to school for 50 years. There's not a 20-something neurosurgeon."

Admitting to her mistake, during the movie-making process Colleen made the decision to age up the characters.

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Colleen added: "As I started making this movie, I'm like, we need to age them out, because I messed up. So that's my fault."

Despite the backlash, the author admitted she was still very proud of the movie and believes fans of her book will still be very happy with what they see.

“I love that there’s discourse surrounding it, I do,” she went on to add.

“I think that people are going to be very pleased. I’m very pleased.”

It Ends With Us is a romance novel about Lily who grew up witnessing her father abuse her mother. Set to take on life alone in Boston, she meets neurosurgeon Ryle who turns her life upside down.

It's not long before an love, Atlas, also re-enters her life forcing her to address her reality.

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