Reese Witherspoon and Blake Lively Compete to Produce Taylor Swift's Directorial Debut

Taylor Swift is all in on making a Hollywood movie following her Eras tour, but she’s got some drama to deal with as both Reese Witherspoon and Blake Lively are pitching hard to be her producer.

“This is not a drill: Taylor is gearing up to make her Hollywood directorial debut and the plan is for it to happen later this year. She is writing the script but officially, there is no real producer on the movie yet,” an insider familiar with the situation exclusively tells Life & Style. “Blake Lively and Reese Witherspoon both want this job and both of them have deep ties to Taylor. It’s going to come down to who Taylor thinks can make her dreams of becoming a Hollywood auteur come true more fully.”

As Swifties know, Taylor, 34, has been best friends with the Gossip Girl alum, 36, for years and has even included the names and voices of Blake and husband Ryan Reynolds’ daughters in her songs.

“Taylor is close personally to Blake but Blake is still working to find her voice as a producer,” the sources adds, following the success of her latest film It Ends With Us. “Meanwhile, Reese is far more experienced at producing movies and even scored a win for Taylor with their unexpectedly successful collab on Where The Crawdads Sing.”

The insider continues, “This is all still an unresolved question but Taylor needs a Hollywood partner and she’s only interested in somebody ready to really go the distance with her — cowards need not apply!”

While the as of yet untitled film project would be the “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” singer’s feature length directorial debut, she has years of experience under her belt when it comes to directing her music video shoots.

Taylor learned the ropes by shadowing and codirecting videos for songs such as “Mine” and “Me!” alongside Roman White, Dave Meyers and Drew Kirsch. In 2020, the Pennsylvania native took a stab at directing solo for the single “The Man” off her Lover album.

“It was a vulnerable moment where you’re sort of on the precipice of finding something new and you're just really hoping you do everything perfectly,” she said at the time. “It is also important to remind yourself you shouldn’t do everything perfectly because you need to learn and grow.”

In the years since, Taylor has directed videos for “Cardigan,” “Willow,” “Anti-Hero,” “Bejeweled,” and, of course, “All Too Well: The Short Film,” which accompanied the 10-minute version of “All Too Well” off her rereleased album Red.

“I’d like to keep taking baby steps forward and I’m at a place now where the next baby step is not a baby step,” Taylor said at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2022 when asked what’s next for the global superstar. “It would be committing to making a film and I feel like I would absolutely love for the right opportunity to arise, because I absolutely adore telling stories this way.”

“I think I will always want to tell human stories about human emotion,” she added.