Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni reach an agreement of sorts: neither wants to stop fighting in court

• In a joint letter filed Thursday, Lively and Baldoni said they don't plan on negotiating.
• They asked the Manhattan judge in their ongoing legal war to exempt them from federal mediation.
• Any settlement talks at this stage would be "premature," their lawyers agreed.

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, the warring costars of the summer box-office hit "It Ends With Us," have reached an agreement, of sorts, in their two-month legal battle. They have agreed to keep disagreeing.

On Thursday, lawyers for both combatants filed a joint letter to the Manhattan judge presiding over their now-consolidated cross-fire federal lawsuits, in which Lively accuses Baldoni of sexually harassing her on the set, and he accuses her of defamation.

Their joint letter says they have zero interest in seeing a mediator and negotiating a possible settlement, despite the court ordering them to begin the dispute-resolution process back in late January.

The letter asks US District Judge Lewis Liman to exempt them from mediation. Litigants in employment-related cases are required to participate in a dispute resolution program unless a judge orders otherwise.

The Lively and Baldoni legal teams have known since late January "that settlement discussions would be premature," the letter to the judge said.

After conferring again on February 7, the parties continue to agree that mediation is "inappropriate," the letter said. The judge can decide at any time whether to let the parties off the mediation hook.

Besides coordinating on scheduling in late January, Thursday's "agree-to-disagree" letter is the first joint agreement in the growing Lively-Baldoni case file.

The legal teams are otherwise quite busy. Both sides are preparing to file motions in which they will ask the judge to dismiss the other side's claims, the letter said.

The web of Lively-Baldoni litigation also continues to widen.

Lively's lawsuit, filed New Year's Eve, names as defendants his film studio, his fellow producers, and his publicists, who she alleges engaged in a retaliatory social-media smear campaign against her after learning she was accusing him of harassment.

Baldoni's lawsuit, filed two weeks later and seeking $400 million in defamation damages, lists Lively's husband, Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds, as a defendant, along with her publicists.

A former publicist for Baldoni has filed a separate lawsuit, as has Baldoni's former so-called crisis guru. According to Thursday's joint letter, Lively's team is preparing "imminently" to add still more defendants to the list of people she is suing.

A trial date has been set for March 2026.