Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims
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Anonymous
You would think that with such great reviews, it would have grossed more than it costs to buy a single family home in Arlington, but it has not. |
Anonymous
Not a litigator but it was very strange. I would expect basic information to be provided like what were the defamatory statements. |
Anonymous
Probably what Wayfarer should do here is send Baldoni out on for press junkets about the movie to talk about what a Very Important and Serious Subject it involves so that people will understand that it certainly won’t be any fun to watch, I bet that will help! |
Anonymous
It had a very limited theatrical release in the US and was not released in theaters overseas. It has mostly been on the film festival circuit and is targeted at specific audiences. Again, very different films with very different purposes. One starred Jonathan Groff who will one day likely be in the EGOT club, and one starred Blake lively who has maybe won an mtv award at best. A nice Indian boy will win awards and be the subject of much cultural discussion, particularly in universities, for years to come. Another Simple Favor will fade into obscurity before summer is over. |
Anonymous
A lawyer from Reddit that I have recommended here (who is generally pro-Lively but not anti-Freedman afaict) has noted that this is Bryan Freedman’s general MO. Strike hard in the press, and look to fill out facts you have alleged in your complaint from discovery — meaning that he often doesn’t have the requisite facts he would need to support his claims when he first files them, as he is actually required/expected to do. So he just may not have the information he is being asked for in the ROGs, in which case he wants as long as possible and up through July when doc discovery is expected to be substantially completed before he would want to file an amended complaint. It explains his delay. He couldn’t substantiate his own complaint and needed more time to try to collect more facts, if possible. |
Anonymous
Hi Pot, meet Kettle. Blake’s team brought a case about a smear campaign and included evidence in their own complaint contradicting the existence of a smear campaign (the chart showing sentiment turned negative towards Lively before Jed Wallace was hired). They’re currently on a fishing expedition “hoping” to find evidence of a smear campaign in discovery. |
Anonymous
All you have right now on ASF are streaming numbers since it was not released in theaters (unlike A Nice Indian Boy). Extrapolate those streaming numbers into revenue and then we can talk about overall performance. But just to be fair in reporting, Nice Indian Boy may not have made the $ back in its theater release for many reasons -- probably a very limited distribution in theaters; Baldoni did not direct; LGBTQ subject may not find large audiences; actors are not well known. Also note that it just began streaming on Fandango a few days ago after a few weeks in theaters, so it would be immature to try to compare streaming numbers against ASF at this point. Also, one cannot assert that ASF is doing better since NIB has not recovered costs yet. Still a long way to go before those numbers make any sense. A Nice Indian Boy has a rotten tomato score of 96%/Popcornmeter score of 97% (beloved by critics and audiences); Another Simple= Favor 64%/Popcornmeter score of 39%. A Nice Indian Boy streams on Fandango/Distributed by Blue Harbor; Another Simple=Prime Video/Distributed by Amazon MGM; A Nice Indian Boy is directed by Roshan Sethi (Produced by Baldoni); Another Simple=directed by Paul F. Good try, but ANIB seems to shine as an Indie-type movie (niche audience, limited screens). Based on feedback alone, it trounces ASF. The revenue story is too premature to say at this time. |
Anonymous
Given that your boy Freedman hasn’t even filed a MTD on the smear campaign allegations and given the texts where Baldoni’s PR reps say stuff like “you know we can bury anyone,” seems like the smear campaign allegations will survive at least for now, whereas basically all of Freedman’s claims, including his most lucrative ones against the NYT, are up for dismissal. I agree that Lively is looking for more info re how the smear campaign worked. That’s what discovery is for. But those texts are enough to show a plan existed for such a campaign and steps were taken in furtherance of it. In other words, Livelt can substantiate the basics for a retaliation campaign, whereas Freedman cannot substantiate a defamation claim against Lively’s PR rep given the absolute lack of facts in his responses. This may help support her MTD and lend weight to granting it with prejudice, but I guess he isn’t worried about that. |
Anonymous
Blake’s cherry-picked texts will be shredded at trial. Anyone with half a brain, which apparently does not include Megan Twohey, knows that “bury” in the PR context means to minimize or downplay (bury the story/bury the lead). It’s never associated with a person, Jennifer Abel’s not in the mob for crying out loud. They were trying to bury the gossip Blake’s team was spreading about Justin. It’s pretty clear in Jen Abel’s text where she’s complaining to Melissa Nathan about Justin saying “she accused you of assault so just be happy with ‘difficult’” meaning they had minimized the story and JB should be happy because it could be worse. Jed Wallace has sworn under oath there was no smear campaign so I think there’s a really good chance they find nothing. |
Anonymous
Interrogatories are the least useful form of discovery and Lively’s lawyers served some ridiculous number of them. At least it pads the bills. |
Anonymous
Alas, they were not. |
Anonymous
Nope. You need more than ‘talk’ to substantiate a claim. Case in point-the Orangeman saying he should be the next pope. No one took him seriously because he actually has to go thru the process to become pope. He can talk about it all he wants, but nothing becomes actionable until he undergoes the steps to become the pontiff (which of course, he cannot). So talk is cheap. Lively will need to show evidence of the smear campaign to have a valid claim. Texts and words alone do not substantiate anything. |
Anonymous
They clearly were referring to burying her, not the stories. That's why he wrote "this is what we would need" regarding negative stories about another female celeb. I'm sure they won't find anything on Jed. He's not a moron like Nathan and Abel. I doubt he would commit anything bad to writing. |
Anonymous
More cherry picked texts. The one you’re referring to won’t show evidence of a smear campaign because the timing of it is after the supposed campaign had begun and is clearly part of their defensive planning about how they “could” respond if Blake went nuclear against Justin. She was actively bullying him and the example of what they would need was about Hailey Bieber bullying. |
Anonymous
And yet, as I already noted, Freedman hasn’t even filed a MTD. So these claims are going to survive discovery and are here at least through summary judgment, which is more than we know about basically the entirety of Freedman’s current complaint riddled with group pleading problems and insufficient facts. Let me say that again. All of Lively’s claims (except possibly those against Jed Wallace) will survive discovery because Freedman did not make the effort to move to dismiss a single one of them. Whereas basically ALL of Baldoni’s claims are up for dismissal. Lively won the chance to find more facts in discovery. Whether or not Freedman will be able to use his discovery finds, if any, will be up to the mercy of the judge. So yes, talk is cheap, let’s see if Freedman will be able to put his money where his very big mouth has been. |