Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Baldoni was a good director. The movie made $400 million. Lively set him up for things that no director should have to go through. The director should not have to go to the actress is very powerful husband’s penthouse to conduct business. Absolutely unprofessional and ridiculous of them to ask that.

And I can name 100 other things which people already have. But then the same poster will just post paragraphs and paragraphs of nonsense that I don’t even end up reading. So I won’t.

But hilarious to me that the movie made $400 million and he’s not a good director. OK.

Right?! That’s like kind of like saying that the movie made $400 million but that Lively did a terrible job marketing it. Oh, wait -

I wonder why sales for the film didn't transfer into Blake Brown and Betty Booze.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Baldoni was a good director. The movie made $400 million. Lively set him up for things that no director should have to go through. The director should not have to go to the actress is very powerful husband’s penthouse to conduct business. Absolutely unprofessional and ridiculous of them to ask that.

And I can name 100 other things which people already have. But then the same poster will just post paragraphs and paragraphs of nonsense that I don’t even end up reading. So I won’t.

But hilarious to me that the movie made $400 million and he’s not a good director. OK.

Right?! That’s like kind of like saying that the movie made $400 million but that Lively did a terrible job marketing it. Oh, wait -

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Baldoni was a good director. The movie made $400 million. Lively set him up for things that no director should have to go through. The director should not have to go to the actress is very powerful husband’s penthouse to conduct business. Absolutely unprofessional and ridiculous of them to ask that.

And I can name 100 other things which people already have. But then the same poster will just post paragraphs and paragraphs of nonsense that I don’t even end up reading. So I won’t.

But hilarious to me that the movie made $400 million and he’s not a good director. OK.

Right?! That’s like kind of like saying that the movie made $400 million but that Lively did a terrible job marketing it. Oh, wait -

Anonymous wrote:Baldoni was a good director. The movie made $400 million. Lively set him up for things that no director should have to go through. The director should not have to go to the actress is very powerful husband’s penthouse to conduct business. Absolutely unprofessional and ridiculous of them to ask that.

And I can name 100 other things which people already have. But then the same poster will just post paragraphs and paragraphs of nonsense that I don’t even end up reading. So I won’t.

But hilarious to me that the movie made $400 million and he’s not a good director. OK.

Anonymous wrote:Baldoni was a good director. The movie made $400 million. Lively set him up for things that no director should have to go through. The director should not have to go to the actress is very powerful husband’s penthouse to conduct business. Absolutely unprofessional and ridiculous of them to ask that.

And I can name 100 other things which people already have. But then the same poster will just post paragraphs and paragraphs of nonsense that I don’t even end up reading. So I won’t.

But hilarious to me that the movie made $400 million and he’s not a good director. OK.

Anonymous wrote:Can someone summarize this whole thread and also why people so invested in it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Baldoni could have directing talent while still being a poor manager. Different skills.

Nope, not on a major movie. If you can't manage people and processes, you can't direct. You want to be an artist? Become a director of cinematography. You want to direct a major motion picture? Learn how to manage people.

Some directors do lean heavily on people around them to handle logistics, as it frees them to focus on the artistic aspect of their job. But that's called delegation, and choosing the right people and knowing how to collaborate with them is part of being a good manager. Baldoni didn't have that. He had enablers like Heath who let him get way underwater with this movie.

It's actually funny to me because one of the things Lively asked for in that "17 point list" was a Sony producer on set daily who could help keep things on track. That producer, Alex Saks, had been involved with the movie from the beginning and has really good experience on movies with similar budgets, star power, and audiences (Book Club, No Hard Feelings). This was actually a great suggestion and Saks would have been a terrific person to bring on earlier as an on-set producer and basically assign her to Lively -- Lively likes Saks, who has a strong Hollywood rep and would not have felt like a babysitter, and Saks has enough experience with stars at that level to function as a good liaison. This could have liberated Baldoni a lot and also made a lot of the awkward conversations smoother, including the conversations about wardrobe and rewrites. I bet if Baldoni had, for instance, talked to Saks about his concerns about the lift and wanting to find out Lively's weight without asking her directly by reaching out to Lively's trainer, Saks would have very quickly explained why that was an extremely bad idea and suggested a more prudent path.

So Lively (I think inadvertently) wound up suggesting a solution that probably helped Baldoni and Wayfarer a great deal in terms of finishing the movie -- an intermediary between Baldoni and Lively. But a better director probably could have come up with that on their own instead of letting things devolve as much as they did first. Baldoni was clueless and thought he could handle Blake himself when every piece of evidence we currently have indicates that he was doing a TERRIBLE job at it.

Anonymous wrote:I also find it ridiculous that male feminist Baldoni was so obsessed with the idea of showing Lily climaxing over and over in this movie, either via Ferrer or Lively. What’s up with that? If he really wanted to show the female gaze in his movie, his camera should be focusing on the face of whichever guy was hulking over Lily during these sex scenes and showing *his* climax, instead of insisting on hypersexualizing and objectifying Lily.

Also, my apologies for getting Ferrari’s age wrong, and for saying that the whole scene was unscripted when actually it was the specific act of Ferrari climaxing on screen that was not scripted that Baldoni threw at her on set — again, very not professional. Guess what — that’s an actual admittance from me that I was wrong about two entire facts, while pro-Baldoners have been wrong about so very much more and yet refuse to ever admit to any of it. Weak.

Anonymous wrote:I love how the "Baldoni sucks as a director" and the pro-Lively posters are supposedly different, yet they both have time to leave paragraphs and paragraphs of nonsense.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with we poster who said the lively supporter was victim blaming Baldoni. Why should Baldoni have been put in the situation? It’s absolutely miserable what they did. Why should he be forced to go to their penthouse for meetings? It’s a power move.

That text about Taylor and Ryan being on her dragons was threatening - essentially you want them on your side and you definitely don’t want them not on your side. That’s what Taylor ended their friendship over according to the media - she felt used.

You are blaming Justin for “giving in” but i don’t see where he had a choice. I think connecting him with the trainer was another power move. Same with lying to him about Ryan’s company taking over the marketing for free and then charging them.

These are nasty, deceitful people. I don’t blame Justin.

This is just silly. Somehow pro-Baldoners are telling Lively that it’s part of her job as an actress to accept and not complain about unscripted kissing and nudity scenes that are outside the norm, but yet Baldoni as the actual director of the film didn’t really have any responsibility for the situations either that he created by springing on unannounced intimacy or nudity, or that he allowed by letting Lively have more power than he was actually comfortable with. To you he only gets credit, no blame.

This includes the situation where I believe he took underage actors like Ferrer, filmed an unscripted intimate scene, and then remarked “I know I’m not supposed to say this, but that was hot” or similar at the end of it. I believe that’s one of the scenes that Lively took out of the final cut of the film.

You just overlook this stuff from Baldoni and it’s actually problematic, but to you everything bad adheres to Lively not Baldoni. It’s weird.

Ferrer wasn't underage. She was 21 or 22 I think when she filmed. Also the scene where Baldoni allegedly said the comment about practicing the scene was scripted to be a sex scene. He wasn't adding in intimacy that wasn't scripted. The allegation is that he added a shot where Ferrer's character (who is the younger version of Lively's character) is supposed to climax on screen during the scene, something that was not apparently in the original script and that Ferrer *allegedly* felt uncomfortable with (we haven't heard from her, this is based on Lively's complaint, I am not saying this is what happened), and also that he made these comments afterward that Lively alleges crossed a line of professionalism.

No comment on whether any of this happened or whether that could be part of a sexual harassment claim (I truly just don't know, I wasn't there, I don't practice that kind of law) but just wanted to correct the facts here.