JUSTIN BALDONI’S $400M (€348m) lawsuit against his former co-star Blake Lively has been formally ended by a US judge.

It’s after Baldoni failed to meet a deadline to continue his claim.

Baldoni and Lively had starred together in the 2024 movie It Ends with Us. Baldoni also directed the film.

They have been locked in a legal battle since December after Lively sued Baldoni, accusing him of sexual harassment.

She also accused Baldoni of waging a retaliatory smear campaign against her.

The New York Times ran an article in December on the complaint Lively had made against Baldoni and ‘It Ends with Us’ producer Jamey Heath for allegedly inappropriate behaviour and comments during the shooting of the movie.

The complaint said Baldoni had spoken inappropriately about his sex life and sought to alter the film to include sex scenes that were not in the script and had not been agreed to.

It also said Heath had watched Lively while she was topless, despite having been asked to turn away.

In December, a lawyer for Wayfarer, the studio behind the film, said in a statement to the New York Times that neither the studio, its executives, nor its PR team did anything to retaliate against Lively.

“These claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media,” lawyer Bryan Freedman wrote in December.

In January of this year, Baldoni filed suit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and the New York Times, arguing that the article the paper ran in December defamed him.

In June, Judge Lewis Liman of the US District Court in Manhattan dismissed the lawsuit filed by Baldoni.

The judge said the New York Times had simply reported on Lively’s original legal filing alleging harassment on set and a retaliatory smear campaign, and that it had taken the trouble to seek a reaction from Baldoni to the actress’s allegations.

The judge also rejected allegations by Baldoni that Lively, whose Instagram account has more than 43 million followers, had tried to seize control of the film and its promotion.

At the time, Lively’s lawyers celebrated what they called a “total victory” over Baldoni’s “retaliatory lawsuit.”

After Baldoni’s case was dismissed, he had the opportunity to file an amended complaint.

His lawyer said in June that “while the court dismissed the defamation related claims, the court has invited us to amend four out of the seven claims against Lively, which will showcase additional evidence and refined allegations.”

However, Judge Lewis Liman today said Baldoni had failed to do so.

The judge said he had contacted all parties on 17 October to give them warning that he would enter a final judgement to conclude the case – only Lively responded.

Meanwhile, Lively’s original case against Baldoni remains ongoing.

Based on a best-selling novel by the US writer Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us is a romantic drama that made more than $350 million at the box office in 2024, making it one of the biggest hits of the year.

-With additional reporting from AFP 2025