Of the many weird, seemingly endless tributaries branching off from the great fractious river of oddness known as the Great Justin Baldoni/Blake Lively Feud Of 2025-Through-Forever, few are as weird, to our mind, as Baldoni’s assertion that Ryan Reynolds wrote a character in 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine specifically to make fun of him. Like, even if it was true that the character of Nicepool—a variant of the Merc With A Mouth who frequently talks about how handsome he is while spouting catchphrases of obnoxiously performative feminism—was based on Baldoni’s alleged behavior during the filming of his and Lively’s It Ends With Us, why would you stand up and admit that about yourself? After all, it’s not like anybody could prove it.
Cut to this past week, when a whole trove of communications from various participants in the drama surrounding It Ends With Us were unsealed as court documents. People have been poring over this new bushel of often-mocking texts pretty aggressively—Lively’s friend Taylor Swift features prominently, adding an extra lighthouse or two of spotlight to the reveals—but a few people have noticed a very specific incident that’s actually pretty hard not to link to the Nicepool character. Specifically, Lively—whose lawsuit against Baldoni claims he frequently made invasive moves to monitor her weight during the filming of the movie—sent a text to a third party recounting an incident in which she said that, shortly after giving birth to her fourth child, “I actually had my director/costar call my trainer today to ask what I’ll weigh in two weeks when we shoot. Because he’s worried about his back and bone density and wants to be sure he’s ok to lift me up for our sex scenes.” (Other texts reportedly show Reynolds reacting to Baldoni’s motive with mockery, writing, “To circle back, he has low bone density.”)
Which, as those of you with encyclopedic knowledge of Reynolds’ filmography will know, is exactly the same reason Nicepool gives for not participating in Deadpool & Wolverine‘s final big Deadpool melee. (He also notes at one point that Lady Deadpool, played by Lively, “just had a baby,” and “you can’t even tell,” which feels pretty pointed.) In analyzing The Nicepool Situation last year, THR noted that, while the character was always included in the film’s script, the ad lib-loving Reynolds didn’t shoot the Nicepool scenes until after the SAG-AFTRA and Writer’s Guild strikes, which would put the timing of those moments right in line with when tensions were brewing on It Ends With Us. None of which is conclusive proof, of course, especially since the judge overseeing the ongoing cases ruled last year that the issue wasn’t legally germane when he threw out Baldoni’s defamation lawsuit against Swift and Lively (and junked Baldoni’s plans to subpoena Marvel about any Nicepool planning documents in the process). Still, though: Comedy springs forth from specificity, and it does seem like Reynolds was in a very specific mindset when he man-bunned up to film a couple of those scenes.
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