When Ryan Reynolds appeared on stage at Fanatics Fest in New York City earlier this month, he met the crowd’s Marvel-fueled excitement with a headline built to land: Deadpool, his foul-mouthed, fourth-wall-breaking antihero, is coming back.
It is a major return for one of Hollywood’s most reliable comic-book franchises. A new film would mark the fourth entry in the Deadpool series, following the 2016 original, its 2018 sequel and 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine, with the franchise having earned nearly $3 billion at the global box office.
The announcement, however, also arrived at a striking moment, shifting attention away from the continuing controversy surrounding Reynolds’ wife, Blake Lively, and her legal battle — along with its highly public aftermath — involving her former It Ends With Us co-star Justin Baldoni.
As the dispute has unfolded, Lively has faced repeated scrutiny, while Reynolds — drawn into the drama after being named in Baldoni’s since-dismissed defamation lawsuit — has largely continued moving forward professionally.
‘He’s made people afraid of him over the years because he’s quite powerful in Hollywood – and he knows it,’ one Hollywood executive told the Daily Mail.
‘Ryan makes people so much money, which is why his businesses don’t seem to be affected by the lawsuit.’
Ryan Reynolds used his Fanatics Fest appearance in New York to deliver a well-timed crowd-pleaser, revealing plans for another Deadpool movie as fallout continues from wife Blake Lively’s legal battle
A source told the Daily Mail that Reynolds has largely avoided the backlash because ‘he’s made people afraid of him over the years because he’s quite powerful in Hollywood – and he knows it’
Lively, 38, sued Baldoni, 42, and his Wayfarer Studios production company in December 2024 for alleged sexual harassment on the set of It Ends With Us and defamation.
Baldoni responded the following month with a $400 million defamation lawsuit against Lively, Reynolds and the New York Times, which had first published her claims. All parties denied the allegations against them.
Then, in October 2025, a judge dismissed Baldoni’s case. In May of this year, after a judge dismissed most of Lively’s claims, she agreed to settle the matter and later requested that Baldoni pay her more than $8 million in legal fees, which he has called ‘excessive.’
Still, Reynolds, 49, did not emerge from his wife’s contentious legal battle completely unscathed.
As the Baldoni drama hit fever pitch in late 2025, Paramount – despite its first-look deal with Reynolds’ production company Maximum Effort – dropped three Reynolds-linked projects amid Paramount’s August 2025 merger with Skydance, which prompted a shake-up of the studio’s film slate.
Those included Area 51, a sci-fi film produced by Reynolds and directed by Colin Trevorrow; a Ferris Bueller’s Day Off spin-off; and Eloise, a children’s book adaptation that has since moved to Netflix.
‘There are some studios who are still stepping back from Ryan,’ one studio executive told the Daily Mail. ‘They think he’s a really nice guy and a great actor. He’s actually really pleasant to work with. But his fee is high and they don’t want to deal with the baggage in the press that he comes with right now because of the lawsuit.’
They added: ‘That’s not to say that there aren’t some people that don’t mind, but there are definitely still companies distancing themselves from him at the moment because of his wife.’
A separate insider, who has worked with Reynolds on a handful of productions, echoed the sentiment, saying: ‘There’s no question the situation has dented his image to an extent, but Ryan is confident he’ll recover more quickly the more he focuses on his own projects and lets his work speak for itself.’
And while Reynolds has quietly distanced himself from his Aviation American Gin, trimming the company’s name from his Instagram bio, the brand itself also seems to have hit a rough patch, with the Oregon distillery and visitor center shutting down this month after only three years.
While Lively continues to weather reputational blows from the Justin Baldoni legal drama, Reynolds keeps cruising at full throttle
Lively, 38, sued Baldoni, 42, and his Wayfarer Studios production company in December 2024 for alleged sexual harassment on the set of It Ends With Us and defamation
Even so, Reynolds has hardly been left outside the velvet rope. Warner Bros, Amazon, Netflix and Disney are still backing Maximum Effort-produced projects like Animal Friends, Aunt Roxie, Rachel Nevada, Boy Band and Reality Vice.
As one source close to Maximum Effort put it: ‘His production company still operates as status quo. It doesn’t seem like people are unwilling to work with him from a film perspective.’
Indeed, Maximum Effort still has its first-look deal with Paramount through the end of 2026, with more titles yet to be announced.
Meanwhile, Reynolds, for his part, is still hoping the blowback from Lively’s legal dispute doesn’t haunt him.
‘Ryan believes that over time he’ll be able to separate his films, business ventures, and public image from Blake’s legal issues,’ said our source who worked on productions with Reynolds. ‘In his eyes, much of the public fatigue is centered on the dispute itself and the people directly involved, while he still maintains a great deal of goodwill and respect within Hollywood.
‘While the ongoing legal battle has had some impact on him simply through association, the bigger career fallout has been on her side.’
Lively has had a far rougher ride, with the rancorous battle apparently taking a toll on her career and leaving her detached from projects she was once very much connected to.
Her turn as Lily Bloom in It Ends with Us was meant to be the big comeback after stepping away from acting to raise the couple’s children: daughters James, 11, Inez, nine, Betty, six, and three-year-old son Olin.
Before that, she had been building her own empire behind the scenes, co-founding production company B for Effort with Kate Vorhoff in March 2020 under her married name, Blake Reynolds.
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While Reynolds has quietly distanced himself from his Aviation American Gin company, trimming it from his Instagram bio, the brand itself also seems to have hit a rough patch, with the Oregon visitor center shutting down after only three years
‘While the ongoing legal battle has had some impact on him simply through association, the bigger career fallout has been on her side,’ one source said
Lively, who held the roles of CEO, CFO and secretary, then announced a slew of TV and film projects – Dark Days at the Magna Carta, The Making Of, Lady Killer and We Used to Live Here – but most of them never made it off the treatment page, with IMDb updates stuck at January 2025.
The stall wasn’t limited to those in-house projects. She was once attached to sci-fi thriller Proxy, but she is no longer listed on the project. Then came Seconds, the graphic novel adaptation she was announced to direct in 2022, with a completed script yet no update since January 2025.
Even The Husband’s Secret has turned into a bit of a mystery of its own. Lively was announced for the lead years ago, but in August 2024, author Liane Moriarty appeared to pour cold water on that casting, telling The Kyle and Jackie O Show: ‘Blake Lively was attached to it, but I don’t know if she’s now detached.’
The only project that actually seems to be moving is The Survival List, the rom-com she will star in and produce.
Meanwhile, her consumer brands also seem to have taken a hit, with Betty Booze and Blake Brown reportedly suffering major setbacks after facing public backlash the last two years.
Lively herself said in her original lawsuit that Blake Brown suffered ‘depressed retail sales by 56–78 percent’ after what she described as a ‘social manipulation campaign.’ Betty Booze also vanished from the Whole Foods coolers that once stocked it, while her non-alcoholic mixer brand Betty Buzz was quietly shuttered.
Even her personal life suffered a blow after popstar Taylor Swift – once one of Lively’s best pals and the godmother to her children – was dragged into the drama.
Baldoni claimed Lively tried to intimidate him when Swift, 36 – who allowed her 2020 track My Tears Ricochet to be used in the movie – turned up at a private meeting about edits Lively had made to a scene.
Unsealed text messages filed in the case then made things even uglier, showing Lively asking Swift to endorse a revised version of the script, with Swift allegedly replying: ‘I’ll do anything for you!!’
Other messages allegedly showed the women scheming to help Lively usurp Baldoni, with Swift referring to him as a ‘b***h’ who got out his ‘tiny violin.’
And more explosive texts from Baldoni’s complaint revealed Lively had called Swift her ‘dragon’ in a bid to intimidate him over the doomed film.
Lively’s friendship with Swift reportedly took a hit in the wake of the legal battle
Betty Booze and Blake Brown reportedly suffering major setbacks after the public backlash in 2024 and 2025
According to one source, Reynolds ‘sees himself as a husband who has supported his wife through a difficult chapter’
By the time the legal matter was settled, the damage was already done. Swift has been trying to keep her distance from the scandal – and Lively – ever since.
That has included icing the Gossip Girl star out of her inner circle, with her husband Travis Kelce unfollowing Reynolds on Instagram. And neither Lively nor Reynolds were in attendance at Swift’s Madison Square Garden wedding on July 3.
Though, despite it all, Reynolds is still keeping his chin up.
‘He doesn’t view this as a situation where his own actions have put his career in jeopardy. Rather, he sees himself as a husband who has supported his wife through a difficult chapter,’ said the insider who has worked with Reynolds.
Of course, he has no intention of talking about it publicly, per the insider, but he will do what he needs to do to get audiences back onside – especially the ones who may have soured on Lively.
And that could mean leaning hard on his crown jewel: Deadpool.
‘From his perspective and Hollywood execs, all it would take is another Deadpool film or a well-received comedy or action project for audiences to fully embrace him again,’ the insider continued.
But Reynolds also knows he can’t exactly make a clean break. After all, he is still firmly hitched to Lively.
‘He knows it’s a delicate balancing act, but he believes it’s entirely possible to move forward professionally while remaining loyal to Blake,’ they said.
‘And despite everything that’s happened, he’s optimistic that, given enough time, both of their careers will eventually find solid footing again.’
The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for Lively and Reynolds for comment.
