A flood of documents tied to the It Ends With Us legal battle were unsealed this week, exposing behind-the-scenes emails and text messages from those involved with the film.<\/p>\n
Blake Lively\u2019s unsealed messages with A-listers including Taylor Swift and Ben Affleck<\/a> have been making headlines, while a transcript of Jenny Slate\u2019s deposition<\/a> tied to the case involving Lively and Justin Baldoni also caught attention. But additional texts and emails involving executives from Sony Pictures have also been revealed, divulging how those in charge of the studio that released the film felt about the Lively-Baldoni drama.<\/p>\n More from The Hollywood Reporter<\/p>\n Lively filed a complaint against the It Ends With Us director<\/a> in December 2024 for sexual harassment. She also alleged that Baldoni and company partook in a \u201csocial manipulation\u201d campaign to \u201cdestroy\u201d her reputation. Baldoni responded with his own lawsuit that was subsequently dismissed in June<\/a><\/p>\n Sony Pictures\u2019 executive vice president of production and senior creative Andrea Giannetti confirmed that she referred to Lively as a \u201cfucking terrorist\u201d when conversing with producer Jamey Heath after learning that the star threatened to depart the film if a 17-point list of changes were not executed.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a tremendous amount of money that had been invested and spent, and we had to finish the movie or it was unreleasable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The Hollywood Reporter reached out to Sony for comment, but did not hear back by the time of publication.<\/p>\n In later messages, Giannetti messaged Lively following It Ends With Us\u2019 successful box office debut<\/a> in early August 2024. \u201cBlake, $50 million!! Your blood, sweat, tears, brilliant smarts, heart and soul in every single frame. My God, it\u2019s incredible. Thank you 50 million times. And it\u2019s only Saturday night,\u201d Giannetti texted her on Aug. 11.<\/p>\n As the internet began speculating about a potential rift<\/a> between Lively and Baldoni, author Colleen Hoover sent a screenshot of a post from Deux Moi, a celebrity gossip account, which pointed out that Baldoni was \u201cmissing from\u201d the film\u2019s press and that Lively \u201cdoesn\u2019t follow him on IG.\u201d She sent the message to the film\u2019s star on July 12 of the same year.<\/p>\n Lively later told Sony that she \u201cdidn\u2019t want to be on the red carpet,\u201d \u201cin photographs,\u201d or \u201cseated near\u201d Baldoni during the film\u2019s premiere.<\/p>\n After additional cast members unfollowed the director, Danni Maggin, a Sony marketing executive, wrote, \u201cThe unfollowing has really picked up today.\u201d Alex Saks, a producer on the film, replied \u201cWhy did everyone have to fucking do that? \u2026 It\u2019s Blake, I\u2019m sure.\u201d<\/p>\n Sony executives also communicated about the negative press circulating at the time about Lively.<\/p>\n On Aug. 11, Tahra Grant, Sony\u2019s executive vp and chief communications officer, wrote, \u201cShe orchestrated all this drama in a totally unsavvy and amateur way (and basically threatened\u2026Sony) and now is mad it backfired on her.\u201d<\/p>\n Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group chairman and CEO Tom Rothman wrote on Aug. 15 that Lively did not \u201cdeserve\u201d the backlash, though he argued that \u201cshe did bring it all on herself by refusing to listen to advice \u2026 and by selling her products,\u201d a reference seemingly to Lively\u2019s decision to debut her haircare brand<\/a> around the time of the film\u2019s release.<\/p>\n Before that, on Aug. 9, Rothman referred to the backlash as a \u201cfucking disaster,\u201d writing, \u201cNone of the who or right or wrong matters at all. The mess is the story now and it will define the film. No one can watch the film the same way. Tragic.\u201d<\/p>\n He also wrote in a separate email that that Lively \u201chas so much \u2014 looks, money, fame, hunk husband, kids \u2014 that the instinct of the crowd is to tear her down. Like what happened to Anne Hathaway, and neither of them deserve it, even though she did bring it on herself by refusing to listen to advice \u2026 and by selling her products.\u201d<\/p>\n Sony Motion Pictures Group president Sanford Panitch agreed with the sentiments on Aug. 21, criticizing Lively\u2019s beauty brand and opposition to have Baldoni involved in much of the film\u2019s promotion: \u201cShe did it to herself. If she just let him come to the premiere or didnt [sic] make all the cast unfollow him or kick him off the movie and did what everyone ever has done in show business for time and\u00a0 memorial which is protect \u2018the show\u2019 then none of the sleuthing would have happened. The hair sell at the same time was epic level stupid. She wouldn\u2019t listen. She knows better.\u201d<\/p>\n In an email, Panitch shared his additional thoughts on the controversy. \u201cIt\u2019s quite ironic because she has a huge hit movie headed to $300M-plus,\u201d Panitch wrote. \u201cAnd probably will never work again, or not for a while. Although even Hathaway recovered. Tom thinks she\u2019s probably and bizarrely unhirable right now.\u201d<\/p>\n One executive disagreed, writing, \u201cThis will pass. She is going to be FINE.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo. Disagree,\u201d Panitch responded. \u201cShe is done for. At least for a while. It\u2019s cooked.\u201d<\/p>\n A trial for the Lively-Baldoni case is set for May 18.<\/p>\n Best of The Hollywood Reporter<\/p>\n Sign up for THR’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A flood of documents tied to the It Ends With Us legal battle were unsealed this week, exposing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[144373,3780,430,156,3783,111,139,69,35846,82682],"class_list":{"0":"post-247479","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-andrea-giannetti","9":"tag-blake-lively","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-justin-baldoni","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-sony-pictures","17":"tag-the-hollywood-reporter"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}