Latest news with #Slanted
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Justin Baldoni Loses 'Highly Personal & Intimate Information' Court Battle With Blake Lively; Risk Of Disclosure Is Great,' Judge Warns Both Sides
Trying to plug leaks, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds have succeeded in what can be shown to whom in their legal conflict with Justin Baldoni, at least for now. 'The parties have levelled accusations of theft of trade secrets and the disclosure of confidential sensitive information against one another,' a pragmatic Judge Lewis J Liman noted today with some degree of understatement almost a year before the trial between the It Ends With Us stars starts on May 29, 2026. More from Deadline SXSW 2025: Amy Wang's 'Slanted' & Benjamin Flaherty's 'Shuffle' Win Narrative & Documentary Feature Awards SXSW 2025: All Of Deadline's Movie Reviews Sophia Bush Explains Why She Agreed To 'One Tree Hill' Revival After It Was "A Hard No" & Praises "Amazing Female Leadership Team" 'The Court's model protective order is not sufficient for the needs of these cases,' the federal Judge added, issuing most of the Attorney's Eyes Only protection that A-listers Lively and Reynolds sought for the discovery process. Unless you've been stuck in space with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams the past four months, you'd know this has been a very high profile and media matter since Lively filed her sexual harassment and retaliation compliant against Baldoni, his Wayfarer Studios and other with California's Civil Rights department on December 20. At a long March 6 hearing over what the scope of any protective order should be and who should be allowed to look at discovery evidence, Judge Liman called the gist of this whole thing 'a feud between PR firms.' Certainly, in what is now a multi-lawsuit battlefield with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake in potential damages, reputations and careers, Team Blake and Team Baldoni have both weaponized the court of public opinion as much as the courts themselves to varying degrees. Now, that's to be expected in a case that features PR heavyweights such as Leslie Sloane (Team Blake + a defendant) and Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel (Team Baldoni + also defendants) in the mix, along with the New York Times. In her CRD complaint, New Year's Eve suit against Baldoni and his inner circle, and a subsequent amended complaint, Lively has insisted that an astroturfing smear campaign was activated against her last summer by Nathan and Abel as a measure to blunt any accusations of misconduct the Gossip Girl vet could make public against Jane the Virgin alum leading up to the hit film's August 2024 release. Late last year, as text message between flacks indicate, Abel in a now deleted posting admitted a preemptive attack was considered and planned. However, the former Joneswork staff also admitted that such an attack as never launched because 'the internet was doing the work for us' against Lively To that, with lawyers like Baldoni lead attorney Bryan Freedman becoming as much a player in the story as the IEWU co-stars, a week after a long NYC hearing on the scope of protective order that could be in place, Judge Liman summed up the reality of the situation on Thursday. He wrote: 'These cases involve both business competitors and allegations of sexual harm. Discovery will necessarily include confidential and sensitive business and personal information. The risk of disclosure is great. Both the Moving Parties and the Wayfarer Parties have accused opposing parties of providing private, sensitive, or confidential information to the media for their own business and personal advantage in ways that cannot easily be traced. Several individuals and corporations on each side are in the business of public relations or media and have easy access to the press.' Leaving little ambiguity of what the rules of engagement will be going forward, Judge Liman laid out that 'the following categories of information may be designated 'Attorneys' Eyes Only': a. Trade secrets; confidential business plans, marketing plans, and strategies for clients other than the parties in this litigation; confidential business projects or leads on projects for clients other than the parties in this litigation; confidential creative projects or ideas other than those involved in this litigation; b. Security measures taken by parties or third parties; c. Medical information of parties or third parties; d. Highly personal and intimate information about third parties, and highly personal and intimate information about parties other than information directly relevant to the truth or falsity of any allegation in the complaints in this case. The Judge concluded: 'The protections conferred by this Order cover not only Confidential and Attorneys' Eyes Only Information but also any information copied or extracted therefrom, as well as all copies, excerpts, summaries, or compilations thereof.' Not that Lively and the Deadpool star got everything they and their lawyers were looking for in the AEO. 'The Court has narrowed the provision to stated that information may be marked AEO only if its disclosure is 'highly likely to cause a significant business, commercial, financial, or privacy injury,' Judge Liman noted Thursday. In that context and terms that may be subjective in certain lights, as Sloane and her Vision PR filed more paperwork to get themselves dismissed from the case, both Team Blake and Team Baldoni are claiming a win — as they often do in this tit for tat. 'Today, the Court rejected the Wayfarer Parties' objections and entered the protections needed to ensure the free flow of discovery material without any risk of witness intimidation or harm to any individual's security,' a spokesperson for Lively told Deadline after Judge Liman's order hit the federal docket. 'With this order in place, Ms. Lively will move forward in the discovery process to obtain even more of the evidence that will prove her claims in Court.' 'We are fully in agreement with the Court's decision to provide a narrow scope of protections to categories such as private mental health records and personal security measures that have never been of interest to us as opposed to Ms. Lively's exceedingly over broad demand for documents for a 2.5 year period of time which the court rightly quashed,' attorney Freedman asserted for Team Baldoni. 'We remain focused on the necessary communications that will directly contradict Ms. Lively's unfounded accusations. We will oppose any efforts by Ms. Lively and her team to hamper our clients' ability to defend against her attacks by incorrectly categorizing important information as 'trade secrets,' especially considering there were no issues in providing these communications willingly to The New York Times. The Gray Lady, who published the article 'We Can Bury Anyone: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine,' about Lively's allegations on December 21, are, like Leslie Sloane, attempting to extricate themselves from the legal clash. Judge Liman was yet to rule or even schedule hearings on both the NYT and Sloane's efforts. Outside of the main event of Livley vs Baldoni, there is also self-described 'hired gun' and alleged Nathan pal Jed Wallace's $7 million suit against Lively. Then there is the Quinn Emanuel represented Stephanie Jones and her Jonesworks firm. In a separate case, filed just before Christmas, Jones is has taken Baldoni, Wayfarer, execs, crisis PR boss Nathan and Abel to court for defamation and breach of contract. Abel was an employee of Jonesworks and Baldoni was a client until last year when both bolted and Abel formed her own PR firm RWA Communications. Best of Deadline 'The White Lotus' Season 3 Release Schedule: When Do New Episodes Arrive On Max? 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Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Crazy Rich Asians 2' writer Amy Wang says the sequel is a ‘slow process,' but she's ‘hopeful'
AUSTIN, Texas — Amy Wang is having a moment. Her debut feature film, Slanted, just premiered at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film & TV Festival. She was also tapped to write Crazy Rich Asians 2, the long-awaited sequel to the 2018 box office smash. 'It's a slow process. They want to get the script right,' she told Yahoo Entertainment, referring to the studio in question, which she did not identify. Warner Bros. produced the first film and owns the rights to the second one. 'I'm hopeful that it will be made soon, but right now, it's a lot of waiting around.' A TV series adaptation based on the books by Kevin Kwan is also in the works at Max, but that's a separate project. In the meantime, Wang is in Texas promoting Slanted — a biting satire about race that's also very personal for her. See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. Wang was on a walk with her husband one day in 2021, when she was 'jolted' by the news that six Asian American women were killed in a hate crime spree in Atlanta. It made her reflect on her experience as a Chinese Australian woman. 'When I was growing up as a teenager, for a really long time, I would wake up and think, 'Hey, wouldn't life just be better if I was white?'' she said. 'All of those emotions and repressed feelings came to the surface.' She started thinking about what a story like that would look like, and it evolved into a darkly comedic (and, she admits, controversial) script — what if two actors of two different races played the same person? That's the idea behind Slanted, a film she wrote and directed, which follows an Asian American high schooler who undergoes 'transracial' surgery to become white in her quest to be accepted by the popular girls and win prom queen. 'So many of the best films, like Get Out and Sorry to Bother You, poked fun at race and difficult topics,' she said. 'I felt like satire and a bit of body horror was the way to go. … I love pushing buttons and making people feel uncomfortable.' Wang tapped Shirley Chen and Mckenna Grace to play her lead, Joan Huang. She goes by Jo Hunt after undergoing experimental surgery to appear white. 'The character of Joan has this kernel of truth to her that I like to pretend doesn't exist. … I like to think of myself as somebody who's very outgoing and comfortable in my skin and identity,' Chen told Yahoo Entertainment. 'But I remember growing up in Washington state surrounded by a lot of white people and imagining as a 6-year-old … that I could turn blonde and have blue eyes.' She said that she outgrew that opinion once she had a better understanding of race, but she sees this role as a tribute to that version of herself. Wang and other cast and crew members confided in her about their own insecurities, which meant a lot to her, given how impressed she was by them 'Tapping into that quiet self-doubt feels really universal and vulnerable — that was really important to me,' Chen continued. Like Wang, she has a few projects in the works, but she's most excited about 'exploring my voice as a creator.' 'I'm really inspired by musicians and artists like Doechii … who pull from so many different forms and voices and styles to create something that's unique to them,' she said. '[Doechii] has worked to know herself and wants to make art to show you that you can be yourself too. I hope I can have a similar effect.' premiered on March 8 at South by Southwest.
Los Angeles Times
09-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Shirley Chen and McKenna Grace from ‘Slanted' use the internet for weird animals
Shirley Chen, McKenna Grace, Fang Du, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Amy Wang and Amelie Zilber came by the L.A. Times studio at the 2025 SXSW Film Festival to talk about their film, 'Slanted.'
