Production on Blake Lively’s The Rhythm Section suspended indefinitely

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

While doing a stunt for the upcoming spy-thriller THE RHYTHM SECTION in December, Blake Lively sustained an injury to her hand which led to production being temporarily suspended. It was hoped that filming would get underway once Blake Lively had recuperated, but THR is reporting that production has now been suspended indefinitely as "Lively's initial hand surgery did not go as planned and the actress must undergo a second surgery and will need more time to recover." Get well soon!

At the moment, it's not clear just when production will resume, but THR's sources have said that the crew has been told to find other work, with other insiders saying that just under half the movie has been shot and that it could another five months before they get back to work. Earlier this year, director Reed Morano (The Handmaid's Tale) updated THR on Blake Lively's status, saying, "She's okay. She's just recovering. The problem is that normally, that kind of an injury, you would have 4 to 6 weeks of rehab and then you would wear a splint. We have to go into stunts, so it's very complicated." Producers later confirmed the shutdown: "Hiatus on the production of The Rhythm Section has been extended due to an ongoing issue with Blake Lively’s hand injury sustained while filming an action sequence on the action thriller at the end of last year."

A synopsis of "The Rhythm Section" via Amazon:

The Rhythm Section is not a thriller about the hunt for a terrorist, although that is the path Stephanie takes, and it’s not a story about revenge, although justice for her family is her initial motivation. Rather, The Rhythm Section is the story of Stephanie’s attempt to reclaim herself. She has to rediscover who she is through a series of roles that she is forced to play; she is never herself. As a prostitute, she is Lisa, the chemical blonde. Later, she is Petra Reuter, German anarchist turned mercenary terrorist. Sometimes, she is Marina Gaudenzi, a Swiss businesswoman, or she’s Susan Branch, an American student, or Elizabeth Shepherd, an English management consultant.

But whoever she is, she’s never herself because her life depends on her being someone else. This is the way she is trained by the intelligence service that recruits her, but it’s also the way she’s taught herself to be; being someone else has always worked for her and so it does now, until she begins to fall in love for the first time with Frank White. This undermines her completely and poses new questions: which of the many people she has become is the one to have fallen in love? Stephanie? Petra? Or one of the others? With whom has Frank fallen in love? Marina? Or the real Stephanie? More than anything, The Rhythm Section is about a catastrophic crisis of identity.

THE RHYTHM SECTION is still slated for a February 22, 2019 release, but that may change.