Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s competing lawsuits, leaks, PR campaigns and messes have left a lot of people feeling burned out. Me, I’m “people.” Even if you’re coming down strongly on one side, hopefully you acknowledge that the past six weeks of attrition have hurt the images of everyone involved. Many of us are waiting to make some larger calls about this situation when it eventually makes its way to court. Well, good news for us. The lawsuits will likely head to trial next year, and there’s already some significant movement. The headline is “Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds Will Move to Dismiss Justin Baldoni’s Lawsuit.” The real story is that the two opposing legal teams are agreeing to consolidate the issue and have one trial.

Blake Lively and husband Ryan Reynolds told a federal judge Thursday that they will seek to dismiss Justin Baldoni‘s defamation lawsuit. Attorneys for the two sides are due in court Monday for the first hearing on the megafeud between the two “It Ends With Us” co-stars.

Lively has accused Baldoni, who was also the film’s director, of sexually harassing her on set, and then retaliating with a smear campaign when she dared to speak up about it. Baldoni and his publicists have countered that Lively defamed them by taking text messages out of context and mischaracterizing their interactions. Baldoni also alleges that Lively and Reynolds pressured WME to drop him as a client, which WME denies.

The couple’s attorneys filed the notice Thursday in compliance with Judge Lewis Liman’s order, which set out how the federal case will move forward. The judge asked for a letter that would “indicate in one sentence the Defendant’s intent to make a motion to dismiss.” Liman will set a deadline later to actually file the motion. “The Lively-Reynolds Parties intend to move to dismiss Plaintiffs’ complaint,” said Michael J. Gottlieb, following the judge’s instruction to keep it short and sweet. Publicist Leslie Sloane, who was also named as a defendant in Baldoni’s suit, filed a similar notice on Wednesday.

The judge has said he expects to schedule a trial for March 2026, and asked the parties to file a plan that would allow for a trial by that date. In a rare moment of agreement, attorneys on both sides have also indicated they have no objection to consolidating the two federal cases into one proceeding.

At the hearing on Monday, the two sides are expected to argue about the extrajudicial conduct of Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman. Lively’s lawyers have argued that Freedman is making prejudicial comments in the press, which they say taints the jury pool. Freedman has countered that he has every right to defend his client publicly from Lively’s media blitz.

On Thursday evening, Baldoni’s side said they want to take Lively’s deposition as soon as possible. But they told the judge that Lively’s lawyers have indicated that she will refuse to let Freedman do the deposition, due to “unspecified statements made by Mr. Freedman.”

“We are unaware of any situation that would warrant the deposed party to have a choice in which attorney takes her deposition,” wrote Kevin Fritz, another Baldoni attorney. “Parties to litigation simply do not have the right to dictate which of their opponents’ attorneys may or may not take their deposition or perform any other aspect of the opposing party’s case.”

[From Variety]

So, Monday’s hearing will likely cover a lot of issues – the potential gag order for Baldoni’s lawyer, the timeline for depositions and Blake Lively’s apparent issue with being deposed by Baldoni’s main attorney. I might have missed something, but I don’t believe that Baldoni’s side has requested a similar gag order on Blake and her lawyers. If there’s a gag order, I would certainly hope that it’s a general one for all sides and all legal teams, because I’m not sure this sh-t can continue to play out in the trade papers and tabloids. As for consolidating the cases for one trial… that needed to happen, and it’s not a “win” for either side, it just makes logical sense and financial sense.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.