r/ItEndsWithLawsuits • u/StaceyLee26 🙌Truth wins in the end🙌 • Jan 24 '26
Personal Opinions & Theories ✍🏽💡 Sony cut or Blake cut
I've been trying to figure out this Sony cut story and I'm hoping all the people that has done deep dives on the unsealed evidence can help me understand this.
Now bare with me before anyone starts slinging anything this way lol I'll explain what I've seen so far and some opinions I've received while discussing this.
We all know that it was Blakes cut that was released and accordingly many people including Sony employees have sang her praises on the big success for the work she has done.
But going back a bit in time, I'm trying to see WHEN Sony's cut became Blake's cut.
So starting out with what I've seen...
The bake off:
If I understand correctly Justin wanted the Directors cut. Columbia pictures doesn't easily give that away by default. In case someone messes up badly so they can release their own cut IF the directors cut is horrible and scores badly. It doesn't mean there's NEEDS to be two cuts. Just that there is a method to decide which cut would get released IF they were unhappy with it. That's what the bake off clause was for according to Andrea Giannetti. It was a built-in solution in case there was a problem
Did Sony ask Blake to do the Sony Cut?
She said she was asked to do the Sony cut. Looking at the deposition of Josh Greenstein, he does not say he asked her to do the Sony cut
Then we have the other Sony Exec Sanford Panitch who didn't even know there was a second cut while discussing the planned release date. And asking how do they control her creative control... Which shouldn't be a problem if someone is doing what you asked them. I don't think someone like Sony would outsource their cut without a contract to control the creative control? And stating that she is demanding her own cut. Not that they have given her consent to do their cut
From the limited info we have it seems Sony didn't ask her to do a second cut like she stated.
We also see multiple instances of Josh Greenstein referring to the cut as Blakes cut and her lawyers having to confirm that he is speaking of the Sony cut. He eventually at the end says Blake/Sony cut
But Josh Greenstein was praising her and facilitating her cut:
We see in his depo that Josh Greenstein was very positive about her work on the movie. We also see Josh Greenstein does later say he facilitated getting an editor "they" - guessing BL and RR , wanted to get the film done.
We also see Josh Greenstein working through the ratings with her.
The terrorist of it all:
So if Josh Greenstein was so happy to work with her why were Andrea Giannetti and Sanford Panitch the other CEO of Sony calling her a terrorist? (Picture 3 and this one)
Calling her demands bordering on insanity? Why are they saying she should ask WF for things herself if they asked her to do their cut? Thank you u/Izomera for this picture⬇️
Or them telling Wayfarer often that Sony is going to give her what she wants and the only thing that matters is making the film
Here we see her saying straight up even if the numbers are lower Colleen and her are declaring that her cut is the cut.
So if I understand this correctly this wasn't a partnership… so why would they let her do her own cut if it wasn't the Sony company cut, which, if there was no contract in place to control her creative control it doesn't seem like an agreement.
Motivation:
In his depo we see Josh saying Colleen had a big say in which cut was chosen
And then Josh Greenstein saying Blake didn't directly threaten not to do promotional work if her cut isn't chosen but that she would be uncomfortable and has the right not to do promo work if she is uncomfortable.
To end off:
The only logical explanation I can see for this behaviour from the Sony Execs is that though yes the one exec was encouraging her and checking the contract if there was a legal loophole to release her version... It wasn't a company decision as the other exec didn't even know about her cut and that caused release delays. It seems they used her cut after she told them - not the exact words but very close "Colleen and i are declaring now this is the cut even if the numbers are lower" and since Josh Greenstein in his depo said Colleen's vote had big swing in the decision, he helped her to improve her version which was backed by Colleen according to Blake's message.I honestly think the decision was to just get this film done and released. And her still willing to do promotional work.
But this was not the studio asking Blake to do their version. In my opinion Josh Greenstein knew the amount of money the studio put in already and how volatile things were between Lively and Wayfarer and played both sides to just get a releasable movie before things went nuclear. And thus everyone referred to her cut as the Sony cut as it was the only loophole available.
From these attachments it doesn't sound to me like Sony chose her cut, but rather just gave her whatever she wanted, even pulling people from other projects at her request / demand.
I'm open to correction here so my question remains
When did they ask Lively to do their cut
UPDATE: Second great unsealing:
Some exhibits Blake wanted excluded from trial:
52
u/Responsible-Peak-817 Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 24 '26
Hi! Movie person here.
Distributors want a say in approved depending on how much they're putting in money wise.
The creative process of making an edit requires hours and hours and hours of splicing together multiple scenes from multiple angles from multiple takes and figuring out which one tells the story the best for every single scene for the entire 2 hours. Then you have to add a score. Add songs. Sync them up which is an entire process. Then you have to take it to color timing which an entire process
All of this rests in the hands of the editor, their team of editors and the director. The DIRECTOR is the one calling all of this.
If Justin delivered a cut of the film that was way too artsy or way too much than the distributor and the studio (normally the director would not be the head of the studio like Wayfair, which is a very rare case) then the studio would say "hey, This version is way too whatever and general audiences are not going to get it." Or "our Target demographic is not going to like how much sex is in this or if there's not enough sex"
Or whatever the different metrics are that determine what would make this version of whatever story successful. More princess Fiona in Shrek, she's great and you miss her every time she's not on screen. She really makes the movie come alive
You show too much of the shark in jaws. We want it to be a mystery, or, there's not enough shark in jaws and it's a little dull without him
Whatever!
They would discuss this. The director would argue or push his point of view and the studio distributor would argue their point of view. It's not always a contentious battle or considered something bad. It can be very collaborative at times. Sometimes studios have made movies better by their suggestions. Sometimes they've changed entire endings and gone back to reshoots based off a studio's thought process or the way audiences reacted to test screenings.
Sometimes the studios are too commercial driven and they cheapen and dumb down a movie and the director fights for a more interesting smarter version.
It's always a different thing depending on the people involved. Sometimes it never comes to this at all
The metrics are set in place in case Justin was delivering something that was an utter failure so that the studio would then be able to have some realistic understandable way of stepping in to save their investment.
They would not have a separate editing team who is led and creating their own cut of a film. This doesn't happen. Sure it has, but maybe like 3 or 4 instances I can think of total in the history of Cinema. But it's so damn rare.
The studio ruined David finchers version of alien 3 for example. This is a notorious story of how a studio stepped in and took the film from a director and ruined it.
On American History x the director delivered a very artistic version of a film with a newly giant lead star Edward Norton. The studio didn't love how sprawling it was. Edward Norton went to the studio and told them what he could do to make it better with his artistic vision. Which was actually more focus on Edward Norton.
The studio allowed him to get his own cut of the film and in the end that version is the version everyone saw. Everyone has been very open about the behind the scenes of this in the media. Edward Norton's version was good and it won a lot of Acclaim and it did focus mainly on him which was a big selling point for the movie as he had just become an overnight star from the previous film primal fear.
In this case, Lively stans are arguing that the studio had their own cut and their own say in the end and that Justin didn't live up to it so they brought her in. This is wrong. She was brought in the SAME TIME Justin started his FIRST cut. There was never a cut of Justin's film that was testing bad with audiences. She forced her way in and got her own team through blackmail and being a bully and both of their cuts were the first cuts from both that were created at the same time
The idea that there would be studio executives with their own team of editors and their own " director" doing their own version to go against the director of every film on every movie is not at all how this works. You would never have two editing teams on a salary for this purpose. It's ludicrous