Blake Lively Debuts New Hair Color Amid News She’s Starring in Popular Book Adaptation

Blake Lively is switching things up! Along with changing her hair color, the actress is adding another project to her busy schedule. She’s set to star in a film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel It Ends With Us. The project will be directed by Jane the Virgin star Justin Baldoni, who has also signed on to star. Lively’s sultry new dark new hair color, which she shared on her Instagram Story and can be seen below, feels on par with the character she’ll play in It Ends With Us.

It Ends With Us centers on Lily, who has just moved and is ready to begin her life after graduating college. After meeting a man named Ryle, she falls in love. Things get complicated when her first love, Atlas, reappears and a love triangle develops. Christy Hall, who developed I Am Not Okay With This, is writing the script and serves as producer, reports Deadline.

Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios optioned the book in 2019, three years after it was published. The project is set up at Sony Pictures. Alex Saks of Saks Picture Company and Wayfarer’s Jamey Heath will produce. Lively, Hoover, Steve Sarowitz, Andrew Calof, and Baldoni will executive produce.

Hoover is now the best-selling novelist in the U.S., with over 20 million books sold. She wrote five of the 10 bestselling print books of any genre for 2022. It Ends With Us became the bestselling print book of 2022 and was on the New York Times Best Seller List for 90 weeks. Hoover wrote a sequel, It Starts With Us, which was published in October 2022.

Lively has not been seen on the big screen since her 2020 stab at being an action star, The Rhythm Section. She is expected to appear in Paul Feig’s sequel to A Simple Favor, alongside co-star Anna Kendrick. Lively is also developing her feature directorial debut, Seconds, an adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel, with writer Edgar Wright.

Baldoni has been working in Hollywood since 2004, but he finally scored a breakout role as Rafael Solano on The CW’s acclaimed Jane the Virgin. After that series wrapped, he shifted focus to producing and directing. He directed Five Feet Apart (2019), starring Haley Lu Richardson and Cole Sprouse, and Clouds (2020), starring Fin Argus.

Hall developed the seven-episode Netflix series I Am Not Okay With This, which was based on the graphic novel by Charles Forsman. She made her directorial debut with Daddio, a two-actor movie starring Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn that is now in post-production. Her other upcoming projects include the English-language remake of Joachim Trier’s Thelma, and adaptations of Stephen King’s The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Liane Moriarty’s The Husband’s Secret, and Katie Khan’s Hold Back the Stars.