“Nicepool” Justin Baldoni sues Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds for $400 million

After a week of publicly declaring himself the inspiration for douchebag Deadpool variant Nicepool, It Ends With Us director and star Justin Baldoni hit Deadpool and Lady Deadpool with a lawsuit. In retrospect, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds should’ve been staring down the barrel of the camera, asking, “His lawyers are right behind me, aren’t they?” Well, they sure were. Following his $250 million lawsuit against The Times, Baldoni has filed suit in New York against Lively and Reynolds for extortion, defamation, and breach of contract, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Baldoni and Lively have been at odds since the now-endless It Ends With Us press tour, after which rumors of sexual harassment allegations spilled into the press. By the end of Us, Baldoni had filed suit against the Times for its bombshell story accusing him of harassing Lively and orchestrating a smear campaign against him. Lively submitted a suit of her own, formally accusing Baldoni of misconduct the very same night. Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, breaks the fourth wall and claims there is “an overwhelming amount of untampered evidence” proving Lively and her team’s “duplicitous attempt to destroy” Baldoni: “This is a battle she will not win and will certainly regret.”

Reynolds’ involvement in the fracas reportedly began in a tense meeting between parties to discuss their ongoing issues. While there are conflicting reports over how aggressive the Reynolds-Lively side was, almost all suggest Baldoni apologized profusely. Later, at the premiere of Deadpool & Wolverine, rumors of another conflict between Baldoni and Reynolds swirled in the press. Baldoni formalized his side in the suit, alleging Reynolds pressured Baldoni’s WME agent to drop Baldoni as a client and called the director a “sexual predator.” WME also represents Reynolds and Lively, and shortly after Lively filed her harassment complaint, WME dropped Baldoni as a client and released a statement saying they weren’t influenced by anyone on Lively’s side.