Justin Baldoni’s legal battle with Blake Lively has not ended with them—Marvel Studios and Disney have now been pulled into the fray due to ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine. This escalation follows Lively’s lawsuit against Baldoni, accusing him of Sєxual harᴀssment and orchestrating a retaliatory online campaign against her during the production and marketing of It Ends with Us, a Sony film about domestic violence led by the feuding pair. Baldoni claims that a character in Ryan Reynolds’ recent film was a deliberate parody of him, with Lively’s husband using the role to mock Baldoni’s self-proclaimed feminist persona.
According to Variety, Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, has issued a litigation hold letter to Marvel President Kevin Feige and Disney CEO Bob Iger, demanding the preservation of all documents related to the creation and development of “Nicepool,” a character featured in ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine. In Shawn Levy’s superhero follow-up, Lively cameoed as Ladypool, who became the subject of Nicepool’s questionable remarks about postpartum body changes—comments Freedman alleges mirror Baldoni’s alleged behavior on the It Ends with Us set.
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The ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine sequence at the center of the controversy shows Nicepool, a gawky alternate version of the тιтular antihero, making comments that Baldoni’s team argues are too specific to Lively’s claims against the actor to be coincidental. These remarks, delivered by Ryan Reynolds, parody a faux-feminist persona, with Nicepool at one point quipping, “It’s okay, I identify as a feminist,” after ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool calls out his misogynistic comment against Lively’s Ladypool: “She just had a baby too, and you can’t even tell.” Reynolds—who also wrote and produced the film—has never addressed the connection.
Baldoni, who prominently touted his feminist credentials during the It Ends with Us promotional campaign, believes the scene was meant to ridicule him directly. The litigation hold letter not only demands documents related to Nicepool but also requests records involving complaints “made against Ryan Reynolds by any person, including without limitation Tim Miller.” Miller, who directed the first ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool movie, did not return for the sequel or ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine, reportedly due to creative differences with Reynolds. It appears that Freedman may be leveraging this industry tension for his case, which is moving closer to litigation as Baldoni plans to sue the Hollywood couple “into oblivion.”
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The It Ends With Us publicity train was not without its complications in the first place, as Baldoni and Lively’s highly segregated press tour led to speculation that the two of them were feuding on set. Lively first brought her Sєxual harᴀssment claims public in late 2024, after It Ends With Us had already had its financially successful theatrical release. Part of the press that followed was a biting New York Times article called “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine,” which spoke about Lively’s claims and the broader issues in Hollywood.
The Nicepool case, however, relies on Disney’s production documents to have clearly stated that Baldoni was the inspiration for the character, rather than a general archetype.
Following this publication, Baldoni and his team sued the New York Times for libel. Their lawsuit claimed that the major news source took too much of Lively’s words as fact, hyperbolizing several exchanges that went on between the two actors. The New York Times has so far maintained the journalistic integrity of this piece. With the most recent ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool lawsuit, it seems that Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios are trying to take down the Lively lawsuit from all angles.
The ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool lawsuit is far less concrete than that of Baldoni vs. the New York Times. In the case of the libel suit, Baldoni might be able to pull up text messages or other written exchanges that more directly contradict the supposedly exaggerated content of the journalistic piece. The Nicepool case, however, relies on Disney’s production documents to have clearly stated that Baldoni was the inspiration for the character, rather than a general archetype. This could be a stretch, but even Baldoni’s attempt to pursue legal action in this way shows just how much he wants to win this feud, for better or worse.
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With Marvel and Disney in the mix, the Baldoni-Lively legal saga adds even more paperwork, studios, and a litany of accusations regarding an already contentious feud. With Reynolds now potentially drawn into litigation, the case broadens from personal accusations to industry-wide scrutiny against Lively and her husband. Whether Nicepool was intended as a caricature of Baldoni specifically or a broader satire of “male feminist” archetypes, Baldoni’s demands for records appear to shift focus from Lively’s detailed allegations of a hostile work environment on the set of It Ends with Us, further mystifying their ongoing battle.
Source: Variety
