Justin Baldoni and his legal team have still not countersued Blake Lively or her team. Baldoni, his publicist and crisis manager are suing the New York Times, and Baldoni’s lawyer promised that a lawsuit against Blake Lively would come in the new year. There’s a big possibility that the Southern California wildfires disrupted those plans – Baldoni and his lawyer are LA-based. In a bizarre turn, Baldoni and his lawyer have sent a “litigation hold letter” to Kevin Feige (Marvel) and Bob Iger (Disney) over Deadpool & Wolverine, a film which came out last year. Within the film, Ryan Reynolds created a “Nicepool” character which was seen by many as a blatant and obvious parody of Justin Baldoni. You can follow this thread for the clips in question:
The more I learn about Nicepool’s character, the more evident it becomes that Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively were mocking Justin Baldoni in the Deadpool & Wolverine movie. Here are all the scenes where Nicepool is imitating Justin Baldoni
(1) In this scene, Nicepool,… pic.twitter.com/gdQpCvBvcH
— The Spiritual Shift (@spiritualshift_) January 8, 2025
Here’s what Baldoni and his team are doing:
The fallout radius of the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni legal battle continues to spread, with Marvel president Kevin Feige, Disney CEO Bob Iger and director Tim Miller becoming the latest industry figures swept into the drama. On Jan. 7, Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman sent a litigation hold letter to Feige and Iger in connection with his client’s “anticipated claims” against Ryan Reynolds, Lively and other unnamed parties. Variety has viewed a copy of the letter, which calls on the studio to preserve all relevant documents and data with regards to Baldoni.
The move may come as a surprise given that “It Ends With Us,” the film at the center of the Lively and Baldoni rift, was released by Sony and had nothing to do with Disney. But Baldoni’s attorney believes that Lively’s husband Ryan Reynolds was flagrantly mocking Baldoni in a sequence in Marvel’s “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which was released by Disney in July. The sequence features Reynolds playing “Nicepool,” an oafish alternate version of the eponymous hero Deadpool, saying such lines as “Where in God’s name is the intimacy coordinator?!” and complimenting Ladypool for “snapping back” into shape after giving birth.
Lively, who cameoed in the tentpole as Ladypool, recently accused Baldoni of sexually harassing and fat-shaming her post-partum body on the set of “It Ends With Us.” When Deadpool points out Nicepool’s misogyny in the scene, the latter replies, “It’s okay, I identify as a feminist.” (During the development, production and marketing of “It Ends With Us,” a drama about domestic violence, Baldoni often touted his credentials as a feminist and ally to women.)
Marvel and Disney declined comment as did an attorney for Reynolds and Lively. Freedman could not be reached for comment. He is believed to be one of the many industry figures whose home was destroyed in the Pacific Palisades fire that is still raging.
The litigation hold letter, sent the day the fires began, calls for Marvel and Disney to preserve “any and all documents relating to the development of the ‘Nicepool’ character” as well as “communications relating to the development, writing, and filming of storylines and scenes featuring ‘Nicepool.’” The letter also calls for the studio to retain “’ and all documents relating to or reflecting a deliberate attempt to mock, harass, ridicule, intimidate, or bully Baldoni through the character of ‘Nicepool.’”
The timing makes sense to me – in the first week of January, Freedman was making a lot of noise about all of the lawsuits he was going to file and Freedman even spoke about the “Nicepool” parody specifically, saying that Reynolds’ parody was particularly weird given the seriousness of what Blake is now accusing Baldoni of (Freedman: “If somebody is seriously sexually harassed, you don’t make fun of it. It’s a serious issue”). This litigation hold letter was sent then, and Variety is only finding out about it and reporting on it now. I think everyone is still anticipating that Baldoni will countersue Blake, but the wildfires have delayed all of it.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
