If The Nicepool Justin Baldoni Stuff Is True, The Timeline Of When Deadpool And Wolverine Sneakily Roasted The Actor Is Startling

Over the last few months there’s been a lot of noise between the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni camps as both parties have sued one another. (And Baldoni has sued the New York Times, but that’s reportedly not going so well.) While the lawsuit news is still relatively fresh, the two actors have seemingly had trouble getting along for quite a while, as fans first caught wind of potential trouble when the two failed to appear on the It Ends with Us carpet together. And as Deadpool & Wolverine tie-ins swirl, it seems like the timeline of when the parties involved were allegedly having problems extends way longer than we previously thought.

The Timeline For Deadpool & Wolverine, It Ends With Us And All That Nicepool Roasting

Deadpool & Wolverine and It Ends with Us both first came out in 2024; however, typically Marvel films have a whole lot of CGI and take way longer to come together than movies that have more of a relationship storyline. Ergo, filming on the MCU film began in May of 2023, but was then postponed due to the WGA Strike and Actors Strike before officially wrapping (with Hugh Jackman famously shaving) in January of 2024.

It Ends with Us actually also went into production in May of 2023, which I was a little surprised about. It was also subsequently shut down by the strikes and only went back into production in January of 2024. So, it actually wrapped production only after Deadpool & Wolverine had already gone into post.

So why is all of this important? In recent months we’ve been talking about how Ryan Reynolds’ Nicepool was seemingly modeled after Justin Baldoni. While not confirmed, it’s come up in Baldoni’s own legal paperwork complaints, and it’s been alleged by his legal team that the character was mocking their client.

Honestly, I’d never really paid attention to the timeframe of when all of this went down, but recently I was listening to a previous Deux U podcast episode and they helped to lay the numbers out for me

So, while the public only learned about potential drama on set as press was ongoing for It Ends with Us, subsequent information has revealed Lively was reportedly having problems on set during filming. Plus, Baldoni’s legal team feels like they know when Nicepool officially became a part of the then upcoming Marvel movie's script – after the January 4th meeting that went down in Blake and Ryan’s apartment in which Reynolds got into a heated confrontation with Baldoni.

This Production Info Does Lead To Some More Questions

This connection to the timeline is super interesting to me, but there’s more information that needs to come to light in a less opaque way.

In Baldoni’s amended complaint, which includes references to Nicepool, it seems the actor only caught wind about the Nicepool character sometime after the release of Deadpool & Wolverine in July of 2024. However, the amended complaint argues Nicepool was an addition to the script that came in or around January 2024, when the Marvel movie had resumed production following the strikes. It Ends with Us had also been paused at that point and would have resumed production soon after.

Obviously, at that point Baldoni and Lively had already had to get on the same page about adding an intimacy coordinator and other issues on set, but I still have some questions about the timeline and whether anyone else involved with filming Deadpool & Wolverine was looped into the unfolding story during filming.

Blake Lively thanked Gordan Reynolds – the name Ryan chose for his Nicepool portrayal – at the end of the movie, but it also unclear if that was seen as some sort of inside joke or something others were in the know about. Director Shawn Levy and others involved in the Marvel film have not been tied into the suits, though Levy has mentioned being involved in the creation of Nicepool in the past.

Then, we know Ryan Reynolds rewrote a rooftop scene in It Ends with Us amidst a lot of this other stuff going on, because Blake Lively confirmed it in August of 2024 (and the screenwriter later also confirmed the Reynolds rewrite was a surprise). However, I don’t know exactly when that rewrite went down during the filming of the movie.

What we do know is shortly after the release of the MCU film, it was requested Baldoni not attend the premiere of the movie he’d starred in and directed. He later contended Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds agreed to “permit” him and the rest of his Wayfarer team to attend, but they were kept in a separate room for a time. More information has unfolded in the time since, and it's doubtless more will continue to come down the pipeline.