Reply to Lively/Baldoni Lawsuit Part 2

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The deposition from the Sony executive about the meeting where Ryan berated Justin is chilling. Highly recommend that people find it and read it.

The Sony executive, Ange, confirmed that Todd Black the other executive said it was the worst meeting he had ever been to. Keep in mind Todd Black is 65 and I believe now retired so that is saying something.

The meeting was a total ambush. They were told they were going to talk about script. No one said that Ryan was going to be there and they were surprised. There were line producers there and they were dismissed. Blake then took out her list and started reading, and Ange said she was shocked as she had not heard any of those complaints before.

She was asked if Ryan acted aggressively or yelled at Justin and confirmed. Yes, his voice was raised.

She described Justin as “frozen.”

She said the meeting went on for five hours with no breaks.

I’m sorry, but that is completely unhinged.

I’m sure Blake defenders will be like he was standing up for his wife or whatever but in no universe is a five hour meeting where you blindside somebody acceptable or an adult way to handle. Justin should’ve had a lawyer or an HR rep available as well if they were bringing up HR issues it’s just not appropriate or professional and sounds insane. [/quote]

I agree it sounds nuts. Five hours is completely bizarre -- I don't understand what was even said over that length of time.

I don't understand why no one in the room was able to diffuse the situation and say "ok, these concerns have been heard, let's stop and reconvene after people have had a chance to process." Even just to take a break for a few hours I think would have helped. Like the project manager in me just thinks this was an unproductive way to handle this.

But I hold them all responsible. Yes, Ryan sounds unhinged and Luke he wouldn't let up. I've dealt with people like that and it SUCKS. But it also sounds like Ange and Todd Black were fairly useless. Baldoni apparently just curled up into a ball and went into a fugue state. I know people think that is understandable but I actually don't. He's not a little kid. He's a man in his 40s who assigned himself the role of star/director/producer of a $30m movie. I am honestly surprised he couldn't stand up for himself or find a better way to navigate the situation than go catatonic. Of course you feel bad for the person being attacked in that meeting, but also -- Baldoni was the boss. I'm shocked he had nothing more to say for himself and that Jamey had to jump in and basically handle the whole meeting.

It adds to my perception that the movie was a rudderless ship, which does make me more sympathetic to the idea that Blake wasn't trying to "steal" the movie so much as put a hand on the till and straighten it out, even as the way she did it was pretty hamfisted.[/quote]

These are pretty serious allegations that sounded like were shocking to everyone sexual harassment and some of the things that she was implying are the allegations that put careers at risk. He should’ve been there with a representative from HR. I don’t blame him for freezing.

If he had stood up and met Ryan tone for tone, would that have been the mature way to handle it? Imagine the story that would’ve been then if he had gotten angry or upset or lashed out. Or even tried to defend himself - and how do you even do that if he felt the claims were baseless or taken out of context . I think freezing is actually pretty normal and pretty measured response. He also should’ve had legal representation. I understand this wasn’t a crime scene, but he was really being back to the corner.
[/quote]

Not suggesting he match Ryan's tone -- Ryan was being ridiculous. But saying look, I'm hearing what you are saying but it is a lot and doesn't match my own memory. Let's take a beat and talk through this. To just say nothing at all... maybe this set Ryan off more, or maybe it made him seem more guilty.

I also don't get why this was treated as coming out of nowhere because it honestly seemed like there was enough discussion of problems on set with Baldoni, Heath, and Ange at that point that none of them should have been that surprised that it came up at this meeting, even if the scope was bigger than they expected. They act like they though everything was great and were blindsided, but it's very obvious things were not great based on the texts and emails we've seen in the months leading up to this meeting.[/quote]

To be fair, we don’t know. There’s one line in the deposition that said he froze. I don’t know that that means he didn’t say anything for five hours. We are speculating a lot with information that we don’t know.

And it was Ange who she said they were blindsided. So I’m willing to take her word for it and you can read the text Blake sent to Justin about this meeting. It was very cordial. I hope he had a nice holidays, etc. and could he come to the penthouse. And they were told they were going to be talking about script changes and they were weren’t told that Ryan was going to be there.

So maybe he wasn’t shocked to hear all the complaints but it sounded like no one was prepared to have an HR meeting. I also think it’s so unprofessional that she kept having meetings in her penthouse. I’m not sure why that was allowed, but I guess if she had all the power and then they just did that.

And I’m sure Justin will be blamed for allowing that to happen or not pushing back on that. But it simply seems like by that point everyone was giving Blake a lot of power. We keep crediting Justin for having total accountability for this movie, but Sony had a say and they let Blake get pretty far. [/quote]

No, read Heath's depo -- he speaks at length about this meeting. He also says Justin froze and just could not speak. Heath says he wound up handling the meeting (yes the five hour meeting) because Justin just could not. Heath even talks about Justin becoming like a child, just unable to respond. I believe Justin also talks about this in his depo. We have way more than the one line in Ange's depo.

I absolutely think Sony fumbled the ball on this. I also think Todd Black and Ange were playing both sides all the time, and also that they were trying to "stay out if it" well past the point when that made any sense. They should have intervened much sooner. Like well before this January meeting. They knew the production was a mess.[/quote]

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