Justin Baldoni Alleges Ryan Reynolds Marvel Character May Have Been Used to ‘Bully’ Him

The It Ends With Us drama just keeps getting more interesting. In his $400 million lawsuit against his co-star, Blake Lively, and her husband Ryan Reynolds for defamation, Justin Baldoni has made a wild claim regarding Reynold’s Nicepool character from the Disney Marvel film Deadpool & Wolverine.  

Baldoni’s lawyers are sending a litigation letter to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and Disney CEO Bob Iger demanding that they keep any documents that may mention Baldoni. The letter notes they want “any and all documents relating to the development of the Nicepool character” in the ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ movie and “communications relating to the development, writing and filming of storylines and scenes featuring Nicepool.”⁠ Entertainment Tonight reports his legal team is seeking anything “relating to or reflecting a deliberate attempt to mock, harass, ridicule, intimidate or bully Baldoni through the character of Nicepool.”⁠

⁠The legal war began after Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment and plotting a smear campaign against her after she came forward about the misconduct she allegedly experienced on set. Baldoni denies such claims. He shot back, stating the initial report in The New York Times was biased in their journalism and didn’t present both sides of the story, namely text messages between him and his PR team, as well as text messages between him and Lively that he says didn’t provide full context. He is also suing The New York Times for $250 million for their coverage of Lively’s complaint. The New York Times stands by their reporting. 

Several of Lively’s co-stars from the film have come out in support of her. During the press and promotion of the film, fans noticed a divide, with Baldoni and Lively doing separate press, with different marketing campaigns for the film. Lively says Baldoni deferred from the agreed upon marketing campaign to make her look bad and push his own agenda.