'It Ends With Us' Screenwriter Reveals Fan-Demanded Change Made to Movie, Says It Was 'Right' Choice

The screenwriter who handled the script for It Ends With Us revealed one big change that was made to the script… on the recommendation of die-hard fans.

Christy Hall tackled the challenging task of transforming Colleen Hoover‘s beloved novel into a script for the forthcoming romance, which stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.

During a recent interview, she revealed that they decided to organize a focus group with 20 “megafans” who came in and read an early draft of the script. They reacted to a few changes from the book to the movie. While some of them went over well, one sparked a backlash.

She revealed that exact point and explained why fans were right about the change.

Keep reading to find out more…

“It was fun to test things like, ‘Is that going to massively bum you out?’” she told EW. “And they were like, ‘No, no, no. We were just wondering why.’”

One change that fans did not oppose was changing the name of the restaurant from Bib’s to Root.

However, Christy added that she did change a line of dialogue from the novel, which directly referenced the movie’s name.

“As a screenwriter, a big no-no is you don’t want any character to ever say the title of the film,” she told the outlet. “So in my initial draft, the draft that they read, I had her say the line, ‘It stops here, between you and me,’ blah, blah, blah. I didn’t have her say, ‘It ends with us.’”

She continued, saying, “The entire room of 20 megafans were like, ‘You have to say it!’”

“I was like, ‘I’m sorry, forgive me! I was testing it out!’ It was like a wall of voices screaming at me, ‘She has to say it,’” she added. “I went, ‘Typically you don’t say the [title],’ and they were like, ‘It doesn’t matter. In this movie, she has to.’”

Was the change for the better? Christy thinks so: “And I have to say, now, when I really watch the film, I’m like, ‘They were right and I was wrong.’ It’s different in this movie. It is.”

“It actually is now my favorite moment in the film. It’s so honest, it’s so real, it’s so raw. I find [Blake's] performance to be really profound, so I am grateful that it’s in there, and as it should be. I love that they read an early draft and they just didn’t let me get away with it for one second,” she said.

Blake also recently had a message for fans of the novel.

It Ends With Us premieres in theaters on August 9 – Watch the trailer.