Justin Baldoni’s $400 Million Countersuit Against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds Officially Dismissed After Missed Deadline

Justin Baldoni’s highly publicized $400 million defamation and extortion countersuit against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds has officially come to an end after the filmmaker failed to meet a court-imposed deadline to amend his claims, marking a dramatic close to one of Hollywood’s most-watched legal showdowns.

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Sony Pictures and “It Ends With Us”: The Center of Controversy

On October 31, U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman of the Southern District of New York signed an order stating that Baldoni and his co-plaintiffs, including Wayfarer Studios, missed their opportunity to amend their case within the permitted timeframe. As a result, the court declared the matter closed (Variety).

The dispute stemmed from the production of the romantic drama It Ends With Us, distributed by Sony Pictures. The film—adapted from Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel—was directed by Baldoni, who also co-starred alongside Lively. What began as a creative collaboration eventually spiraled into a bitter legal feud that exposed behind-the-scenes tensions in one of Hollywood’s most anticipated adaptations.

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A Case Dismissed—But Not Forgotten

The dismissal follows the court’s initial ruling in June, when Judge Liman determined that Baldoni’s defamation claims lacked sufficient legal grounding. According to Complex, many of the statements cited in Baldoni’s lawsuit were drawn from Lively’s earlier sexual harassment filing and a New York Times investigative article—both of which were deemed protected under litigation and journalistic privileges.

The judge concluded that the remarks in question did not constitute defamation under U.S. law, effectively dismantling Baldoni’s core argument. Legal experts cited by The Hollywood Reporter noted that this decision reinforced long-standing protections for speech related to court filings and public-interest reporting.

While Baldoni retains the right to appeal, Judge Liman’s latest order effectively terminates all pending claims against Lively, Reynolds, and The New York Times. Notably, Lively was the only defendant to respond to the court’s warning on October 17 that final judgment was imminent. Her legal team requested that the court proceed with final judgment while maintaining her request for attorney’s fees—a motion the judge approved (Deadline).

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The Origins of a Hollywood Feud

The countersuit, filed in January 2025, came as a direct response to Lively’s December 2024 lawsuit accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment and workplace retaliation during the filming of It Ends With Us. According to Variety, Lively’s complaint included disturbing allegations that Baldoni “leaned forward and slowly dragged his lips from her ear down her neck” during a rehearsal and pressured her to perform an explicit scene she was uncomfortable with.

Her lawsuit also accused the director of making intrusive comments about her marriage to Ryan Reynolds, describing what she called a “toxic power dynamic” on set.

Baldoni, 40, vehemently denied the accusations, calling them “false, malicious, and career-destroying.” In his $400 million countersuit, he accused Lively and Reynolds of orchestrating a defamation campaign and cited a December 2024 New York Times exposé titled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine” as evidence of a broader effort to damage his reputation.

However, Judge Liman dismissed these arguments in June, affirming that the reporting was protected under the First Amendment and rejecting Baldoni’s extortion allegations outright (The New York Times).

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Reactions and What Comes Next

Following the dismissal, Lively’s legal representatives hailed the decision as “a total victory and a complete vindication” for the Gossip Girl alum, describing Baldoni’s countersuit as a “baseless attempt to intimidate a survivor” (Deadline).

Meanwhile, Lively’s original sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit remains active, meaning the legal saga between the two Hollywood stars is far from over. Legal analysts have suggested that this continuing case could expose more details about workplace conduct and gender dynamics in major studio productions.

As of 2025, Baldoni’s net worth is estimated at approximately $4 million, while Lively’s stands around $30 million. Her husband, actor-producer Ryan Reynolds, has an estimated net worth of $350 million, according to Forbes.

Though this chapter of Baldoni’s countersuit has officially closed, the broader implications for Hollywood—where defamation and harassment claims increasingly intersect—are likely to resonate long after the final judgment.