IP Picks🔎: Hillbilly Lawyers Take On the Man

➕ The first organized-crime boss was more Mrs. Maisel than Michael Corleone

Box Office Begins or Ends With Us? Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in the romantic drama based on Colleen Hoover’s bestseller (coming Aug. 9) had a record-setting trailer debut. (NICOLE RIVELLI/SONY)

Welcome to The Optionist. As always, thanks for reading along. We’re ready to send you out on the holiday weekend with some great picks.

This week, Texas Monthly ran a great profile of Colleen Hoover. It’s worth reading. As all of you know, Hoover has been one of the publishing world’s biggest sensations over the last few years, regularly placing multiple books on the New York Times best-seller list simultaneously. So far, she’s mostly managed to eschew the limelight. This piece not only explains why, but it also gives us a good sense of who she is and the pressures of hitting it big.

The article came out right before we got the initial viewer numbers on the trailer for the upcoming Blake Lively-toplined adaptation of her book It Ends with Us, which ended up getting 128 million views in its first 24 hours. Granted, that’s not quite Deadpool & Wolverine numbers (365 million views), but it’s currently the most for a female-centered movie.

This is the first adaptation for Hoover’s work since she really exploded as an author, so I’ve been eagerly anticipating its release on August 9. In fact, I’ve got a running conversation with Sean McNulty (aka “The Wakeup Guy”) about this. My feeling is that Hollywood (or at least the Hollywood press) has been sleeping on this title and that Hoover’s fan base is huge and passionate. Back when it was originally scheduled to come out right before Valentine’s Day, I thought it would do gangbusters. Sean was more skeptical, noting that the absence of a trailer so close to its opening was a worrying sign. Then the movie got pushed to August. I still say it’s going to be huge. As for Sean, he’s taking a wait-and-see approach. (To be fair, Sean’s a sober-minded guy while I’m definitely more of a hype man.)

I’m rooting for it to succeed because I’d love to see it give some juice to mid-budget non-superhero, non-sequel movies. I really believe there’s still a market for weepy romances, rom-coms and other adult-targeted movies. A big haul at the box office could re-energize an audience that still hasn’t fully returned post-Covid and convince studios that there’s a viable market there.

And let’s be honest, I also want to be able to hold it over Sean and gloat if I’m right!

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Onto this week’s picks:

• A legal thriller in the vein of A Civil Action

• A period true-crime drama about the first organized-crime boss

• A political thriller with echoes of The Americans and The Manchurian Candidate

• An inspirational sports drama about an inner-city fencing team

• A feel-good story about a billionaire who gave $1,000 to every graduate in the audience for his commencement speech