Every Hollywood feud ends in an accounting. The war over “It Ends With Us” is now down to the bills, and the bills are more revealing than the press releases ever were.
The latest, reported by Page Six on October 22, comes from an unexpected source. WME dropped Justin Baldoni as a client just before the 2024 Christmas break, after Blake Lively, also a WME client, accused him of sexual harassment in a complaint with California’s Civil Rights Department. Mr. Baldoni denied the accusations. Nearly two years later, according to Page Six’s sources, the agency is trying to collect a commission on Mr. Baldoni’s backend earnings from the film. The sources put the sum in the mid-to-high six figures and say WME’s general counsel, Courtney Braun, is leading the effort.
WME did not dispute the broad outline. “As a matter of policy, we pursue all unpaid commissions from current and former clients,” the agency said in a statement to Page Six. “Additionally, we do not discuss details of these private matters.” A representative for Mr. Baldoni did not respond to Page Six.
The backend, explained
The money exists because the movie was a hit. Released by Sony Pictures in August 2024, “It Ends With Us” grossed $351.4 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. Mr. Baldoni directed and co-starred, and his Wayfarer Studios, the company he co-founded with the billionaire Steve Sarowitz, produced it. On a hit, backend participation is the profit share that keeps paying long after the premiere. It is also the kind of money agencies commission, typically at 10 percent, on deals made while they represented the client.
The awkward part is the history. WME did not just part ways with Mr. Baldoni; it publicly took a side. According to Page Six, the agency’s statement after a judge tossed Ms. Lively’s harassment claims in April praised her for keeping “the focus where it belongs: on facts, accountability, and the right to speak up without fear of retaliation.” Ari Emanuel, executive chairman of WME Group, garbled Mr. Baldoni’s name on “Freakonomics Radio Live” in 2025 (“Bologna … Baldoni … whatever his name is”) while calling the situation, in an expletive this publication will spare you, a bad one.
One unnamed source told Page Six the commission push looked like a possible breach of fiduciary duty. Page Six also noted that under California regulations, an agency’s right to commissions carries a duty not to act against the client’s interests, even after it drops him. That is a sourced opinion and a regulatory gloss, not a ruling, and nothing filed so far tests it. It does suggest the next round of this fight could be about agency law rather than conduct on a film set.
The bill that came due in Manhattan
The litigation itself lived in Manhattan, at the federal courthouse on Pearl Street, before Judge Lewis J. Liman of the Southern District of New York. Ms. Lively sued Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer and others in Lively v. Wayfarer Studios. The Wayfarer side answered with a $400 million complaint against Ms. Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, her publicist and The New York Times, alleging defamation and civil extortion, among other claims. Judge Liman dismissed it in June 2025.
What followed was a slow deflation. Ms. Lively’s harassment claims were dismissed in April 2026. On May 7, about 11 days before a scheduled trial, the parties filed a settlement stipulation dismissing her case. Page Six reports that no money changed hands. The stipulation preserved one item: Ms. Lively’s motion for attorneys’ fees under California Civil Code section 47.1, a 2024 statute that lets someone who reports harassment recover legal fees after defeating a defamation suit over that report. Both sides agreed to waive any appeal of the judge’s ruling on it.
On June 12, Judge Liman held that Ms. Lively was entitled to fees under the statute, and he denied her bid for treble and punitive damages on procedural grounds. On August 26 he set the number. Ms. Lively had asked for $8,035,040.88. She got $363,245.40 in fees and $44,206.35 in costs, a total of $407,451.75, or roughly 5 cents on the dollar, according to a reading of the 21-page opinion.
A lesson in billing
The opinion shows how expensive celebrity litigation gets. The judge limited the award to work on the defamation claim and work closely tied to it, not the entire sprawling case. He disallowed vague or heavily redacted time entries and clerical tasks billed at lawyers’ rates. He also cut time spent on press and media strategy, which courts generally do not treat as legal work, a notable exclusion in a case fought as much in the press as in court. Ms. Lively’s submission covered 82 timekeepers but supplied titles and rates for only 11. Rather than rebuild her bill line by line, the court found a benchmark: the $181,622.70 The Times had sought for defending the same statements. It doubled that figure, reasoning that Ms. Lively had reasonably needed to spend more.
So here is the box score, as best the public record allows. The $400 million Wayfarer complaint was dismissed. Ms. Lively’s own claims were dismissed, followed by a settlement in which, by Page Six’s account, nobody paid anybody. She won a fee award of about $407,000 against a request of $8 million. And now, if Page Six’s sources are right, the agency that dropped Mr. Baldoni may get a six-figure share of what the film earned him.
The tabloids covered this as a morality play. The ledger shows that the lawyers billed heavily, the court paid out little, and the agency’s commission may outlast its loyalty to the client.
Featured image: Blake Lively at the 2011 Time 100 gala in New York. Photo by David Shankbone via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.
Leave a Reply