Dozens of text and email conversations from the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni PR dumpster fire have become public thanks to ongoing the legal battle between the “It Ends With Us” star and director.
This week, global spectators read exhibits from a New York district court meant to bolster both sides in Lively’s lawsuit against Baldoni for harassment and retaliation. Of particular interest to Hollywood insiders were blunt and extremely candid conversations between executives at Sony Pictures, who co-financed and released “It Ends With Us” in August 2024, trying to parse the scandal that erupted when Lively came forward with accusations against Baldoni. The director and co-star mounted his own defamation case against the actress and the New York Times for a story meant to expose him.
It’s not just that the Sony emails and texts lay bare the tough business of making a movie – and dealing with an ugly talent war – but also how eerily reminiscent these revelations are of the 2014 Sony Hack. That corporate cyber-attack rated as the worst ever on U.S. soil, ended careers and caused rifts for years in show business thanks to an archive of leaked emails between executives, agents and stars.
“She did it to herself,” Sandford Panitch, president of the Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group, wrote about Lively in August 2024. At that time, it had been revealed the Lively insisted Baldoni be banned from the red carpet of her film’s New York premiere, until she had cleared the press line.
“If she just let him come to the premiere, or didn’t make all the cast unfollow him or kick him off the movie, and did what everyone ever has done in show business for time and memorial which is protect ‘the show’ then none of the sleuthing would have happened,” observed Panitch. The “sleuthing” refers to countless users on social platforms like TikTok spending months investigating the fallout between Baldoni, Lively and his cast.
“The hair sell at the same time was epic level stupid. She wouldn’t listen. She knows better,” Panitch concluded, referring to Lively’s decision to launch marketing activations for her haircare and alcohol products in concert with the film’s release. “It Ends With Us” tells the story of domestic violence, and how one woman attempts to break the toxic cycle. Selling shampoo and spiked lemonade on the back of the Colleen Hoover adaptation played as vulgar and opportunistic.
Tom Rothman, the longest-serving studio executive in modern Hollywood and CEO at Sony Pictures, said he did not think Lively deserved the heat she got, but did write in an email that “”she did bring it all on herself by refusing to listen to advice … and by selling her products.”
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Tahra Grant, Executive Vice President and Chief Communications Officer for Sony Pictures Entertainment, echoed the sentiment. “She orchestrated all this drama in a totally unsavvy and amateur way (and basically threatened…Sony) and now is mad it backfired on her,” Grant wrote of Lively in August 2024.
One could hardly blame Sony for the post-mortem (though perhaps it shouldn’t have come via email, lest the hack teach us nothing). “It Ends With Us” grossed a staggering $350 million at the worldwide box office on a reported $25 million budget (in court documents, executives admitted the budget ballooned closer to $55 million after reshoots and delays caused by the 2023 Hollywood guild strikes and COVID-19 outbreaks). A sequel would’ve been a no-brianer for a mid-budget movie that overperformed in theaters. The catch, of course, is that Baldoni has the rights to the sequel.
The tough talk doesn’t stop there. Ange Giannetti, the Sony Pictures executive overseeing “It Ends With Us,” is at the center of numerous salacious exhibits in the case — which went before a New York judge on Thursday, as Baldoni filed a motion to have Lively’s case dismissed before trial. The judge delayed a ruling to take further advisement.
Deadpool himself, Lively’s husband Ryan Reynolds, showed there was no love lost for Gianetti and one of her Sony colleagues, the documents show. Renyolds called the execs “fucking textbook, ineffectual elderly people with no ideas or thoughtful communication skills. Just blunt instruments with six catchphrases and about 5 key words.”
Giannetti had some thoughts of her own. In a lengthy deposition taken by Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman, she admitted to referring to Lively as a “terrorist.”
The Sony executives are far from the only power players ensnared by this evidence dump. Taylor Swift, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Bradley Cooper and more were wooed by Lively to endorse her cut of “It Ends With Us,” after Sony agreed to consider versions from both director and star.
The New York Judge’s decision to move to trial is expected in the coming days. Sony Pictures had no comment on the matter.
From Variety US