‘Love is Blind’ takes on the Midwest in official season 8 trailer
Netflix
A new pod squad is heading to the Midwest.
The trailer for season 8 of Netflix’s Love is Blind was released on Tuesday, showing off the new crop of singles looking to find love without knowing what their partner looks like.
Season 8 premieres this Valentine’s Day, marking the five-year anniversary of the reality dating show. New batches of episodes will air each Friday through March 7, showcasing the different couples’ journeys from the pods to the wedding altar.
This season, all of the singles are from Minneapolis, Minnesota. The age range goes from 26 to 43 years old. Among those participating are nurses, world travelers and former cheerleaders.
“When the doors opened and I saw him, I thought, ‘He’s so familiar to me.’ I believed he knew exactly what I looked like the entire time we were talking through the wall,” one of the female contestants says through voice-over in the trailer.
Co-hosted by Nick and Vanessa Lachey, Netflix recently renewed Love is Blind through season 10.
Justin Baldoni has filed a new civil lawsuit against Blake Lively, her husband, Ryan Reynolds, the couple’s publicist Leslie Sloane and Sloane’s public relations company, Vision PR, for, among other things, extortion and defamation.
Baldoni, who directed and starred in the film It Ends With Us with Lively, is accusing Lively of having “robbed” Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios LLC of control of the film, as well as destroying Baldoni’s “personal and professional reputations and livelihood.”
The suit lists Baldoni, Wayfarer and Baldoni’s publicist Jennifer Abel as plaintiffs, as well as Melissa Nathan, a crisis PR specialist hired by Wayfarer Studios, and Jamey Heath, Baldoni’s friend and podcast co-host. They are currently seeking $400 million in damages.
“Lively stole Wayfarer’s movie, hijacked Wayfarer’s premiere, destroyed Plaintiffs’ personal and professional reputations and livelihood, and aimed to drive Plaintiffs out of business entirely,” the suit reads.
The suit claims Lively pushed a “false and damaging narrative” against Baldoni that was “rife with lies and doctored ‘evidence'” in accusing him of sexual harassment on the set of It Ends with Us.
Lively first raised allegations of sexual harassment against Baldoni and accused him and his publicity team of trying to destroy her reputation in a complaint she filed in December with the California Civil Rights Department, which included numerous text messages and communications she claimed were part of a campaign to attack her public image. The New York Times was the first to report Lively’s legal complaint.
Lively then formally filed a lawsuit in New York against Baldoni and other defendants, again alleging sexual harassment.
Bryan Freedman, the attorney for Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, denied all allegations.
Baldoni’s suit accuses Sloane of having gone “so far as to propagate malicious stories portraying Baldoni as a sexual predator” and Reynolds of using the term to describe Baldoni in a call with Baldoni’s agent. The suit claims Reynolds told Baldoni’s rep to “drop” him as a client.
Baldoni also accused Reynolds of launching into an “aggressive tirade, berating Baldoni in what Baldoni later described as a ‘traumatic’ encounter” at the couple’s home during the film’s production.
The suit claims Baldoni and the other plaintiffs were “the targets of a calculated and vitriolic smear campaign” lodged by the defendants and that Lively, leveraging her and her husband’s star power, took control of the film — including Lively having her own cut of it.
Freedman said in a statement, “This lawsuit is a legal action based on an overwhelming amount of untampered evidence detailing Blake Lively and her team’s duplicitous attempt to destroy Justin Baldoni, his team and their respective companies by disseminating grossly edited, unsubstantiated, new and doctored information to the media.”
“It is clear based on our own all out willingness to provide all complete text messages, emails, video footage and other documentary evidence that was shared between the parties in real time, that this is a battle she will not win and will certainly regret,” Freedman continued.
Freedman ended his statement by saying, “We know the truth, and now the public does too. Justin and his team have nothing to hide, documents do not lie.”
ABC News has reached out to Lively, Reynolds, Sloane and Vision PR for a comment in response to Baldoni’s suit against them, but has not yet received a response.
Baldoni’s latest action in his legal battle against Lively comes after he had filed a lawsuit against The New York Times on Dec. 31 for libel and false light invasion of privacy, after it published the story “We Can Bury Anyone” on Dec. 22, which included reporting on Lively’s complaint. That same day, Lively formally filed her lawsuit in New York against Baldoni and other defendants.
Baldoni was reportedly dropped from his talent agency after the story was published.
In his complaint against The New York Times, Baldoni accused the newspaper of relying on “cherry-picked” and altered communications, with details “stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced” to “mislead.”
In a statement to ABC News, The New York Times denied Baldoni’s accusations and said their original story was “meticulously and responsibly reported,” and that their report was “based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article.”
Lively’s attorney issued a statement amid the ongoing feud.
“Ms. Lively’s federal litigation before the Southern District of New York involves serious claims of sexual harassment and retaliation, backed by concrete facts. This is not a ‘feud’ arising from ‘creative differences’ or a ‘he said/she said’ situation. As alleged in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and as we will prove in litigation, Wayfarer and its associates engaged in unlawful, retaliatory astroturfing against Ms. Lively for simply trying to protect herself and others on a film set,” the statement read in part.
In recent days, both Baldoni and Lively’s attorney have issued statements on the ongoing legal feud.
There’s a major shakeup in the James Bond franchise.
Amazon MGM Studios announced Thursday that it has teamed up with longtime 007 producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson to form a joint venture to house the James Bond intellectual rights.
Additionally, Broccoli and Wilson, who are siblings, will remain co-owners, but Amazon MGM Studios gains creative control of the franchise moving forward.
Amazon has held the rights to distribute Bond films since 2022, when it acquired MGM.
“Since his theatrical introduction over 60 years ago, James Bond has been one of the most iconic characters in filmed entertainment,” Mike Hopkins, head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, said in a press release.
Hopkins went on to express gratitude to Broccoli and Wilson “for their unyielding dedication and their role in continuing the legacy of the franchise that is cherished by legions of fans worldwide,” adding, “We are honoured to continue this treasured heritage, and look forward to ushering in the next phase of the legendary 007 for audiences around the world.”
Wilson, in a statement, said he is “stepping back from producing the James Bond films to focus on art and charitable projects” after helping lead the franchise for “nearly 60 incredible years.”
Broccoli said her life has “been dedicated to maintaining and building upon the extraordinary legacy” of James Bond and, with Wilson’s retirement and the conclusion of the latest run of 007 films, she feels “it is time to focus on my other projects.”
The announcement comes more than three years after the most recent Bond film, 2021’s No Time to Die, ended Daniel Craig‘s time as the beloved British spy.
Jesse Eisenberg wants you to know he doesn’t claim Mark Zuckerberg.
The actor played the Meta CEO and Facebook creator in the 2010 film The Social Network, a portrayal for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. While speaking with BBC 4 on Tuesday, Eisenberg said he doesn’t want to think of himself “as associated with somebody like that.”
“It’s not like I played a great golfer or something and now people think I’m a great golfer,” Eisenberg said. “It’s like this guy that’s doing things that are problematic, taking away fact-checking and safety concerns, making people who are already threatened in this world more threatened.”
Eisenberg also said he’s concerned by recent developments at Meta and with the tech world in general.
“These people have billions upon billions of dollars, like more money than any human person has ever amassed and what are they doing with it?” Eisenberg said. “Oh, they’re doing it to curry favor with somebody who’s preaching hate. That’s what I think … not as like a person who played in a movie. I think of it as somebody who is married to a woman who teaches disability justice in New York and lives for her students are going to get a little harder this year.”
The actor could be referring to Zuckerberg’s changes to Facebook and Instagram in the lead-up to Donald Trump‘s second presidential term, including the end of fact-checking on those platforms and the axing of diversity programs at Meta.
