Blake Lively is sharing an unconventional “family portrait” with Ryan Reynolds.
The actress, 36, updated her Instagram Stories on Wednesday, July 17, with a snapshot of two framed posters of their upcoming movies hanging side-by-side on a wall. Lively’s It Ends With Us hits theaters August 9 while her husband’s Deadpool & Wolverine will be released two Fridays before, on July 26.
“Family portrait,” Lively wrote in her Story, tagging the photographer: Novelist Colleen Hoover, whose bestseller It Ends With Us inspired the big-screen adaptation of the same name.
Meanwhile, speculation swirled among fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that Lively will play Lady Deadpool opposite her husband, 47, in Deadpool & Wolverine. A glimpse of the female version of Reynolds’ Deadpool was shown in a new trailer released on Tuesday, July 16. As the fandom traded theories about the identity of the woman behind the mask, much of the chatter revolved around Lively as the likely Lady.
“Yeah, it’s 💯 certain that Blake Lively is playing Lady Deadpool,” one X user captioned photos of the former Gossip Girl star and the superhero. Another fan wrote, “So curious to see who ends up playing this role. Blake Lively seems like the obvious choice but we shall see.”
Lively and Reynolds share a sardonic, quick-witted sense of humor, making them well-suited for each other both on and off the screen. After Reynolds posed with his canine costar Penny — who plays Dogpool in Deadpool & Wolverine — at a U.K. screening last week, Lively joked via her Instagram Story: “SOS: He’s trying to get me pregnant again. Put the dog that you find adorable in spite of societal k9 expectations away and take off the damn teal suit! Rude.”
The twosome are parents to daughters James, 9, Inez, 7, and Betty, 4, as well as a fourth baby. Lively gave birth in February 2023 but hasn’t shared the little one’s sex or name.
Lively has been busy promoting It Ends With Us, in which she stars as Lily Bloom, whose life is turned upside down when her first love, Atlas (Brandon Sklenar), returns to throw a wrench in her life and new relationship.
“If you don’t know the book, the movie works,” Lively said in June. “I don’t think there’s any way that if you read the book and you saw the movie that you wouldn’t be thrilled. We really worked hard on that. I also believe if you saw the movie and then read the book, you wouldn’t go, ‘Hold on, this isn’t like [the other].’ You can do either. I think they’re both really beautiful.”
Like Deadpool, Hoover — who authored the dramatic romance novel — boasts her own diehard fanbase.
“She wrote stories that resonated with people and didn’t go to all the traditional means that people go to,” Lovely said of the writer, 44, who initially self-published her books. “She went directly to the people she was speaking to and they came forward in masses. This story resonated with so many people, so there’s a great responsibility that comes with that.”