LOST: Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni: A year ago, I argued Lively and Baldoni were locked in mutually assured destruction and only their lawyers, the media and fans obsessively watching this feud would be the real winners (writing at the time, “In the lawsuit filings, Lively comes across like somebody who would order the launch of nuclear warheads over not getting a booth at a restaurant. Whereas Baldoni seems like somebody who would burst into tears when a Tinder date fails to praise his unsolicited dick pic”).
That prediction turned out to be correct. The duo settled this week ahead of their courtroom showdown and issued a needle-thread media statement, which was a meaningless, blameless word salad with hedge sauce. If a New York Post report is correct that no money changed hands — except for the duo paying a stunning $60 million in legal fees — the settlement is even more striking. All that drama … for a stalemate and statement? The budget for It Ends With Us was $25 million. Lively and Baldoni could have made a couple of sequels instead of paying lawyers, but hey, everybody has their own idea of fun.
Still, Lively and Baldoni were going to be winners this week. Avoiding court benefits both, and they seemed poised to move on with their careers (what’s left of them amid the smoldering ashes). Lively, in particular, looked lovely as she stepped out for the Met Gala (more on that below). It was a savvy move, with real “turning a new page” energy (even if it had the gossips whispering: Where’s Ryan?).
Then came the news that Lively’s team is still going after Baldoni to try and recoup damages and legal fees from Baldoni’s retaliatory defamation lawsuit. Then her attorneys declared to the press, “This settlement is a resounding victory … Justin Baldoni and every individual defendant now face personal liability for abusing the legal system to silence and intimidate Ms. Lively.” Then Baldoni’s attorney shot back, “This is a win and total victory …they settled because they knew they were going to lose.”
All this within 48 hours of the settlement statement, which literally included this sentence: “It is our sincere hope that this brings closure and allows all involved to move forward constructively and in peace, including a respectful environment online.” It’s like having an exhausting, hours-long argument with your spouse, you both finally calm down and reconcile, and then just as your partner is walking out of the room, they turn back and go, “And another thing!“
WON: Louis C.K.: It’s like that line from The Rise of Skywalker: “Somehow, Louis C.K. returned…” Nine years after the comedian was essentially canceled in Hollywood after admitting to sexual misconduct, he’s back to headline the Netflix Is a Joke festival. At the Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday, the comedian said, “Thank you to Netflix. I really appreciate the gig.”
Regardless of your feelings about this, there’s a legit question for Netflix. Our sister publication Variety spoke to the streamer’s stand-up chief Robbie Praw and asked, “Tell me about the process of getting him back on Netflix“ — which is the most feather-touch way possible of asking the real question, which is: You guys canceled a Louis C.K. special due to his scandal and haven’t done business with him since. What’s actually changed that made you want to work with him again?
Praw’s answer: “…part of the job of my team is we listen to the type of stand-ups people want to see, but we also spend a lot of time looking at who’s selling tickets all around the world. Louis has had a really impressive run for the last two years, and he has a great special right now, so we’re excited to see it on Netflix this summer.”
Except C.K. returned to widespread popularity with acclaimed material in the stand-up scene fairly soon after the pandemic, not recently. He won a Grammy for best comedy album in 2022. He sold out Madison Square Garden in 2023. If Praw was pressed on this matter, one suspects he would keep repeating the same answer, Westworld android style.
An honest reply might be: Nearly a decade has passed, he’s really popular, nobody can agree on the consequences for certain mistakes, and we estimate blowback will be minimal. But hey: “My team just now noticed this Louis C.K. guy sells tickets” is also an answer.
LOST: The Met Gala: The Gala went from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Tax the Rich” dress five years ago to the mega-rich invading the event, with Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos paying $10 million to serve as honorary chairs. Tech titans Mark Zuckerberg and Sergey Brin also crashed the annual parade of protest-y decadence. The “Tech Gala” twist resulted in largely unproven speculation that some celebrities boycotted the event (one bets that every celeb on that suspected boycott list regularly has Amazon purchases on their doorstep).
For all the billionaire invasion criticism, the event has long been an advertising, media promotion and networking ritual for the wealthy and powerful, so what changed, really? The event’s bigger sin was that the costumes — er, fashion — on parade weren’t that bold or interesting (“Tame … tempered, restrained, safe,” was how NPR culture critic Marjon Carlos put it). We want our Met Gala stars looking like extras from The Hunger Games Capitol so we can mock them and say wildly how out of touch they are. The event failed at its one job.
WON: Spencer Pratt: Would The Hills star actually make for a good L.A. mayor? Perhaps the better question: Would he make for a worse one? The L.A. Times and Vanity Fair both ranked his debut debate performance this week a “winner” (hey, don’t steal my thing) and an informal NBC4-LA poll likewise suggested Pratt was the clear debate victor.
It was a begrudging admission that Pratt did pretty well against incumbent Karen Bass and city councilwoman Nithya Raman (or, as Pratt brutally branded Raman, “a random city council member”). That bonkers viral Batman AI ad supporting Pratt also received plenty of attention this week, even if it was largely praise from right-wingers on X looking for any excuse to dump on L.A. Pratt remains a long shot, especially if Raman drops out and voters consolidate around Bass, but he won the expectations game this round.
WON: Disney crushed earnings this week — revenue up 7 percent, with Disney+ and Hulu boosting profitability at a time when streamers are struggling. The company’s parks division continues to print money (partly by squeezing creepy Disney adults who are going into debt to finance their addiction to Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage).
LOST: Warner Bros. saw revenue fall 3 percent and the company lost $2.9 billion in the first quarter. The latter was largely due to having to pay that extraordinary $2.8 billion “breakup fee” to Netflix (show of hands: How many want to get paid breakup fees when they get dumped too?). Streaming was up 9 percent, however, leading CEO David Zaslav to call HBO Max “probably … our most important asset” (to which HBO boss Casey Bloys is surely thinking: What do you mean “probably”?)
WON: Sean Astin: The Lord of the Rings star-turned-SAG-AFTRA president helped lead his union through a hard-fought six weeks of negotiations to forge a new contract with studios and streamers, and avoided a strike. Though nothing is yet official, Astin is also rumored to reprise his beloved role of Samwise Gamgee in the recently announced The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past (a.k.a. The Stephen Colbert one). C’mon, you can’t bring back Elijah Wood’s Frodo for The Hunt for Gollum without bringing back “my Sam” for the next one.
Last Week: Why Jimmy Kimmel and Meryl Streep Won, and ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ Lost
Next Week: Winners and Losers, Broadcast Upfronts Edition…
Thoughts, tips, praise, suggestions, gripes: jhibberd@thr.com.
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