Half a century ago, a defining question of the Watergate scandal was, “What did the President know and when did he know it?” Today, a surprising question has emerged in the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni legal saga: “What did Nicepool say, and when did he say it?”
On Tuesday, a letter from Baldoni attorney Bryan Freedman to Disney landed in the hands of the media. Freedman’s legal hold letter to Disney CEO Bob Iger and Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige — in which he addressed them as “Bob” and “Kevin” — asked the studio to preserve any documents regarding Baldoni and the creation of Nicepool, a minor character in Deadpool & Wolverine that internet sleuths (and Freedman himself) say star-writer-producer Ryan Reynolds used to mock Baldoni.
Disney and Marvel have not yet responded to Freedman, according to sources. It is unclear if the studio has even received the letter from the attorney, who is known both for his legal acumen and for spinning compelling narratives in the press. It’s also unclear why Iger and Feige would be targeted in the letter, as it stretches credulity to think the executives would be privy to any real-world backstory involving the creation of Nicepool — or that they were familiar with Baldoni before the It Ends with Us media storm. Marvel declined to comment.
Freedman sent the letter via FedEx on Jan. 7, the day the Palisades fire broke out. He’s among thousands who lost his in the blaze.
Freedman suggests work on Nicepool came as Reynolds’ wife, Lively, was in the midst of a contentious shoot with her It Ends with Us director-star Baldoni. She later filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against him, while on Thursday, Baldoni sued Reynolds, Lively and Live’y’s publicist, Leslie Sloane.
So, how (and when) did Nicepool end up in the movie?
The character was developed before the rift between Lively and Baldoni, but sources tell THR that scenes involving Nicepool were shot late in the game following the November 2023 conclusion of the SAG-AFTRA strike.
“It was all added post-strike,” says one knowledgeable source of the shooting schedule, who says the scenes were filmed in the final days of principal photography, which wrapped up in January 2024.
In other words, the scenes were shot during a high point of tension between Lively and Baldoni. In November 2023, Baldoni and his Wayfarer producing partner Jamey Heath signed an agreement put forward by Lively outlining alleged bad behaviors the men would no longer engage in as part of an accord for her to return to work following the strike. In January 2024, the group — including Reynolds, there to support Lively — met in person at Lively and Reynolds’ loft in lower Manhattan to discuss a return to set. That meeting grew heated, according to lawsuits filed by Baldoni.
While the Nicepool scenes were shot near the end of production, the conception of the character came earlier. On the audio commentary for Deadpool & Wolverine, filmmaker Shawn Levy and Reynolds noted that work on Nicepool’s costume was completed before they settled on the main Deadpool costume — suggesting the character’s origins (if not his dialogue) pre-dated the Baldoni-Lively tension.
Deadpool & Wolverine features a number of Deadpool variants — alternate versions of the character who make up the Deadpool Corps., a deadly group featured during a climactic battle of the movie. On the audio commentary, Levy said Nicepool is “one of very few Deadpool variants not from the comics and springs from our writing team’s brain — and was so fun. Clearly Canadian. Clearly absurd. And Ryan just came to deliver when it comes to Nicepool.” (Baldoni is American, while Levy and Reynolds are natives of Canada, like Nicepool.)
In one scene involving Nicepool, played by an unmasked Reynolds, the character comments that Ladypool (Lively) just had a baby, and she’s so gorgeous that “you can’t even tell.” Deadpool responds, “I don’t think you’re supposed to say that,” to which Nicepool rejoins, “That’s okay. I identify as a feminist.” In an outtake available on home entertainment, Nicepool notes his “calling is to one day start a podcast that monetizes the women’s movement.” These comments took on new light following Lively’s allegations against Baldoni, who built a public persona of being an ally to women, including as co-host of the now-defunct Man Enough podcast.
In the shooting script, there’s nothing in the character’s description pegging him as a Baldoni avatar (no man-bun, for instance). Rather, he’s described as a younger, slightly more muscular Reynolds (aided with help from Lola, the visual effects house known for de-aging Marvel actors like Samuel L. Jackson for Captain Marvel).
“He’s immaculate. He wears a Deadpool suit with no mask,” reads the script’s description of Nicepool. “The suit looks like Yves Saint Laurent himself slummed it and designed a Marvel film. The man’s about twenty-percent more muscular and after a pretty healthy session in Lola, looks like a younger RYAN REYNOLDS in his prime before his looks were ravaged by four children and ten side hustles. The man’s a goddamn angel.”
In addition to details on Nicepool’s creation and efforts to mock Baldoni, Freedman’s letter also asks for a hold on any information regarding the 2016 exit of Deadpool director Tim Miller from the franchise amid creative differences with Reynolds. That’s another curiousity of the letter, given that the 2016 film was made by 20th Century Fox — three years before Disney bought Fox, and before Iger and Feige had anything to do with the Deadpool franchise.
Freedman is already a known quantity to Disney, as he also represents Beau DeMayo, whom Marvel fired as showrunner of X-Men ’97 in March 2023 after allegations of sexual misconduct. (DeMayo has denied this.)
Reynolds has not stated one way or the other if Nicepool is a stand-in for Baldoni. The source familiar with Deadpool & Wolverine’s shooting schedule notes that likely only a few people know for sure. Reynolds knows, of course, and perhaps Levy would too, as the pair continued work on the script on the set (other credited writers included Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick and Zeb Wells).
Says the source: “We will never know. We can only speculate. But some of the things he says, looking back, are pointed at Justin Baldoni.”
