Jesus. There was already a lot of bad blood between these two, but things just got a lot worse. An unexpected twist has occurred.
Blake Lively has reportedly filed a lawsuit against “It Ends With Us” co-star & director Justin Baldoni for sexual harassment and launching a smear campaign against her. Not much in terms of details, but this is certainly a new twist in their already much talked about on and off set feud.
Already, the idea of a sequel not happening for a film, budgeted at only $25M, that made over $300M worldwide, was highly unusual. Now, it’s likely never going to happen. Especially with Baldoni owning the rights to the book sequel, and at the moment, holding it hostage, away from Lively.
There’s been a lot of bad blood between Baldoni and Lively, to the point where they avoided each other during press for the film. However, sexual harassment? That’s a serious accusation, and I bet Baldoni has already lawyered up and is ready to fight this in court.
UPDATE: The New York Times is tackling the accusations against Baldoni. Lively’s complaint says production stopped briefly to address “concerns,” and that Baldoni agreed to “correct his behavior.”
The complaint contains texts tackling a back and forth between Baldoni’s publicist and the crisis manager his production company hired during the summer when the movie premiered and the director was getting attacked publicly. The gist of it was that the publicists were going to destroy Lively in the press (“we can bury anyone”).
If Lively manages to financially ruin Baldoni, there could very well be a settlement for him to give Lively the rights to “It Ends With Us,” which is something she’s badly wanted for well over a year now. Lively wants to make that movie without him. Since “It Ends with Us” was a hit, the sequel is the ultimate prize. It sounds like Lively has the goods to bury him …
Leaked mid-production agreement between Baldoni & Lively (Per NYT):
1. No more showing nude videos or images of women , including producer’s wife,to BL and/or her employees.
2.No more mention of Mr Baldoni’s or Mr Heath’s previous ” pornography addiction” or BL’s lack of pornography consumption to BL or to other crew members.
3. No more discussions to BL and/or her employees about personal experiences with
sex, including as it relates to spouses or others.
4.No more mention to BL or her employees of personal times that physical consent
was not given in sexual acts, as either the abuser or the abused.
5. No more descriptions of their own genitalia to BL.
It’s been seven years since Alma Har’el’s feature debut, “Honey Boy,” which was written by and starred Shia LaBeouf — she is now set to direct her next film, with a very talented cast.