The courtroom drama surrounding *It Ends With Us* keeps refusing to end.
This week, a judge in the Southern District of New York ruled that Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni will head to trial in March 2026, denying several motions to dismiss that both sides had filed over the past year.
The decision means the dueling lawsuits — hers alleging sexual harassment and a smear campaign, his alleging defamation and extortion — will play out in front of a jury rather than settle quietly behind closed doors.
For anyone who lost track: the two co-starred in the 2024 adaptation of Colleen Hoover's bestseller, and the promotional tour was noticeably frosty.
By December 2024, Lively filed a complaint accusing Baldoni and his studio, Wayfarer, of misconduct on set and a coordinated effort to damage her reputation.
Baldoni countersued in January 2025, claiming Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, tried to hijack the film and destroy his career.
The latest ruling didn't resolve the core claims, but it did narrow the battlefield.
The judge tossed a few peripheral accusations while letting the most serious ones proceed.
Legal analysts say that's typical in high-profile cases where both parties are trying to get chunks of the opposition's argument thrown out before a jury ever hears it.
What makes this one unusual is the discovery phase, which is now fully underway.
That means depositions, private texts, and internal emails could become public record in the coming months.
Hollywood rarely enjoys that kind of exposure, and publicists on both sides are reportedly bracing for leaks that could reshape how fans see the entire saga.
Meanwhile, the financial stakes are climbing.
Legal fees in a case this size can run into the tens of millions, and neither party has shown any appetite for backing down.
Sources close to the production say the fallout has already cooled interest in a sequel, even though the original film pulled in over $350 million worldwide.
Reynolds, for his part, has stayed mostly silent publicly, though he was named in early filings.
His team has dismissed the claims as retaliation.
Lively has continued promoting other projects while the case moves forward, and Baldoni has kept a lower profile, focusing on smaller directing work.
Fans have been split online, with hashtags supporting each side trending repeatedly over the past year.
That social media noise may not matter in court, but it absolutely matters for careers.
Studios are watching closely, and the outcome could influence how future on-set disputes are handled — or how quickly they get buried. **Our take:** This trial is going to be messy, expensive, and impossible to ignore.
Final Thoughts
Whatever a jury decides in 2026, the reputational damage is already baked in — and Hollywood's habit of letting these fights drag on for years rarely ends with anyone looking good.