Even before Blake Lively filed her sexual harassment and retaliation complaint with California’s Civil Rights department on December 20 last year, Justin Baldoni alleges that Ryan Reynolds had a major role in his spouse and Baldoni’s blood feud over what really happened during the making of It Ends With Us and ahead of the film’s summer 2024 release.

Now, in an April Fool’s Day opposition filing, IEWU director Baldoni, his Wayfarer Studios, exec and publicists are determined to block the Deadpool star’s desire to be dismissed from the $400 million and counting defamation and extortion case against Lively, Reynolds, publicist Leslie Sloane and the New York Times. “Reynolds and Lively exploited Lively’s false insinuations to coerce the Wayfarer Parties to cede to them power and authority to which they were not entitled,” a memorandum of law from Team Baldoni states of what allegedly went down.

“Reynolds and Lively, along with the Sloane Parties, engaged in a coordinated effort to exaggerate benign interactions in service of a false narrative that Lively had been sexually harassed,” the filing in federal court adds with no shortage of prose. “They did so to instill terror in the Wayfarer Parties and leverage it to accumulate power.”

The use of the term “terror” here by Baldoni’s team in what Judge Lewis J. Liman last month succinctly designated as a “feud between PR firms” aside, Lively over her CRD filing and various lawsuits has long claimed that an astroturfing campaign was instigated against her online last year in the lead up to IEWU’s August release to preempt assertions from the Gossip Girl vet of misconduct on the part of the Jane the Virgin alum.

Those claims draw in no small part on text messages and other communications between Baldoni’s PR team of Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel, some of which mock their client as much as Lively. With assertions that the other side has essentially cherry picked the texts, Baldoni and his team have repeatedly denied any such smear campaign was ever unleashed. Abel, in a quickly delated Facebook post late last year insisted “it’s our job to be ready for any scenario, but we didn’t have to implement anything, because the internet was doing the work for us.”

Whoever lit the fuse on online, the resulting attacks on Lively were very similar to the vitriolic attacks on Amber Heard during the Aquaman star’s failed attempt at a 2022 trial to rebut ex-husband Johnny Depp’s $50 million defamation claims. Melissa Nathan was on that Depp account three years ago.

Along with standing firm — despite Ari Emanuel’s remarks to the contrary — that Reynolds had Baldoni and Wayfarer were kicked to the curb at WME, the opposition from lawyers at Meister Seeling & Fein and Liner Freedman Tailtelman + Cooley claims this whole thing was a set-up.

“Reynolds also knew that the ‘smear campaign’ narrative was false or acted with reckless disregard for its truth,” the documents state, noticeably leaving out any mention of previous clams that the Canadian-born actor created the icky Nicepool role in Deadpool & Wolverine to mock Baldoni.

“Along with his co-conspirators, Reynolds got hold of communications between the Wayfarer Parties from Stephanie Jones that disproved the claim the Wayfarer Parties had orchestrated a smear campaign,” the memo says. “Given that they had these materials, Reynolds, Lively, and the Sloane Parties either knew that the narrative they later publicized was false or, at best, disregarded evidence. It also would have been clear to Reynolds—who owns a marketing company—that the cause of Lively’s bad press was her decision to hawk liquor and hair care products while promoting a film about domestic violence.”

“The notion that the backlash was caused by an ‘untraceable” smear campaign is ‘so inherently improbable that only a reckless person would have put [the claim] in circulation,’” the memo exclaims, quoting from a Scientology related case.  

A portion of Baldoni’s side of the case has long been drenched in lament for what look like now regretted tactical choices on the relatively inexperienced IEWU director’s part. To that, there is perspective that looks less about Reynolds accumulating power for himself and his star-in-her-own-right wife and Baldoni and his gang acquiescing.

As well, in the great career context, getting into a project with Lively, as Baldoni must have been aware and certainly acted like he was aware in some of the texts between he and busy franchise and UK football club frontman Reynolds, meant to some degree becoming connected to Reynolds.

A smart move and connection if nothing else for a newbie director and his company with a long-term plan.  

Today, Reynolds’ reps dismissed Baldoni’s opposition to their client’s dismissal motion.

“The main takeaway from the Wayfarer Parties’ opposition to Ryan’s motion to dismiss their case is that they finally realize the plain defects in their complaint,” a Reynolds spokesperson said to Deadline.

“They once again claim defamation without alleging who was defamed, what specifically was said, or how anyone suffered actual harm,” Reynolds’ side’s statement goes on to say. “Unlike Mr. Baldoni, who built his brand pretending to be a man who is ‘confident enough to listen’ to the women in his life, Ryan Reynolds actually is that man and he will continue to support his wife as she stands up to the individuals who not only harassed her but then have retaliated against her. Under New York law, California law, and indeed in every jurisdiction of the United States this lawsuit not only fails but may result in the Wayfarer Parties covering Ryan’s costs and attorneys’ fees for bringing such a frivolous case in the first place.”

Leaning into the long game, Baldoni’s side want to be able to amend their complaint again if Judge Liman won’t agree to halt Reynolds’ dismissal motion.

Ryan Reynolds isn’t the only person in the Lively vs. Baldoni matter who wants out the case. Lively, Leslie Sloane, and the NYT have all filed motions of dismissal of their own. On the other side, Team Baldoni has pretty much avoided the word “dismissal” while at the same time formally rejecting the accusations against them.

Wednesday saw Lively put the legal heel on the other foot and file to prevent Texas-based Jed Wallace from exiting the case.

Avoiding much mention of Wallace’s separate $7 million suit against the actress and slamming his total denial of “any wrongdoing,” the April 2 document from Lively’s Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Manatt, Phelps & Phillips lawyers leaves ambiguity by the side of the road. J”ed Wallace and his company Street Relations, Inc. were the covert operatives in Justin Baldoni, Jamey Heath, and Steve Sarowitz’s conspiracy to retaliate against Plaintiff Blake Lively for speaking out about Mr. Baldoni and Mr. Heath’s misconduct on the set of It Ends With Us,” the 31-page opposition from Livley says. “Mr. Wallace is a self-described ‘hired gun’ who executes ‘untraceable’ campaigns on social media platforms.”

Citing a previous filing of their own, Lively’s team go on to say “The Amended Complaint exhaustively details the outrageous nature of the retaliatory scheme in which the Wallace Parties participated, including the seeding of content that ‘create[d] and sustain[ed] a negative news cycle and social media algorithm around Ms. Lively,’ and that resulted in online vitriol and violence inundating Ms. Lively, her business accounts, and her loved ones.”

And, of course this being Lively vs. Baldoni, the filing quotes from text messages like Nathan’s utterance that “majority of socials are so pro Justin and I don’t even agree with half of them [sic] lol,” and added that “[i]t’s actually sad because it just shows you have people [sic] really want to hate on women.”