Colleen Hoover’s 2025 Adaptation Misfires: Is This the Sequel to Blake Lively’s It Ends With Us?
Colleen Hoover’s Regretting You has arrived—and no, it’s not a sequel to Blake Lively’s It Ends With Us. Forget the fan theories: this is a standalone adaptation ready to break hearts on its own terms.
Quick PSA before the internet melts down: Colleen Hoover's Regretting You is not a secret sequel to It Ends With Us. Not connected, not a continuation, not Part 2. Different book, different movie. And yes, it is already catching heat.
What this movie actually is
Regretting You is a standalone Hoover adaptation from The Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone. It leans into grief and betrayal, with a fractured family at the center and a tragic accident that drags buried secrets into the open. It is technically a romance, but the family drama is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. The cast is stacked: Mckenna Grace, Mason Thames, Allison Williams, and Dave Franco.
Early reception: oof
Critics are not into it so far. Regretting You is sitting at 18% on Rotten Tomatoes, with a lot of reviewers calling it melodramatic without delivering real emotional payoff. Pacing gets dinged, tone gets dinged, and even the more forgiving reviews still point to shaky execution. Performances are getting praise, but the movie around them is the problem. Given Boone's track record, expectations were higher than this.
IMDb has it at 6.4/10 right now, which suggests audiences are warmer than critics, but not by much.
- Regretting You (2025)
Genre: Romance
Director: Josh Boone
Cast: Mckenna Grace, Mason Thames, Allison Williams, Dave Franco
Rotten Tomatoes (critics): 18%
IMDb: 6.4/10
Release: October 24, 2025 (theaters) - It Ends With Us
Genre: Romance
Director: Justin Baldoni
Cast: Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively, Brandon Sklenar, Hasan Minhaj, Jenny Slate
Rotten Tomatoes: 54% critics, 88% audience
Worldwide box office: $349M
Now streaming on Netflix in the US
The Hoover factor: critics vs crowds
If you are getting deja vu, that is because It Ends With Us took a similar path: lukewarm critics, enthusiastic fans, giant box office. That movie even had public friction between Blake Lively and director Justin Baldoni and still steamrolled its way to $349 million worldwide. Hoover adaptations run on fandom and feelings more than Tomatometer math.
Can Regretting You still break out?
It could. If the conversation turns into debate (or hate-watching), that is still visibility, and visibility sells tickets. The real swing factor will be whether the performances and the mother-daughter storyline connect once people actually see it, regardless of the messy first impression.
Bottom line
Do not expect an It Ends With Us sequel. Do expect a glossy tearjerker with a strong cast and some rough edges that critics are already pouncing on. If you are Hoover-curious, you will get your chance when Regretting You hits theaters on October 24, 2025. And if you want a vibe check in the meantime, It Ends With Us is on Netflix in the US.