Film enthusiasts are in Armas.
Two moviegoers have filed a lawsuit against Universal Pictures after renting the film “Yesterday,” which featured Ana de Armas in its trailer but not in the film itself.
Tuesday, a federal judge found that movie studios can be sued under false advertising statutes if they distribute fraudulent movie trailers. The defendant, Universal City Pictures, LLC, had attempted to have the case dismissed.
Conor Woulfe, from Maryland, and Peter Michael Rosza, from California, claimed to have paid $3.99 to rent the Beatles-inspired musical film on Amazon Prime, starring Himesh Patel and Lily James, after seeing de Armas in the film’s trailer.
However, Woulfe and Rosza felt cheated when the film ended nearly two hours later without the arrival of the Cuban-Spanish actress.
In January, the men decided to file a $5 million lawsuit against Universal Pictures on the grounds that they were duped by the false trailer.
Richard Curtis, the screenwriter of “Yesterday,” previously claimed that de Armas was slated to play an additional love interest for the main character, but was eliminated from the 2019 film when test audiences despised the love triangle scenario.
Although de Armas’ part with The Beatles’ song “Something” was deleted from the final film, her footage was retained in the film’s trailer and used to advertise the picture years after its initial release.
The lawsuit claims that Universal promoted the picture using Ana de Armas’ “fame, brightness, and brilliance” despite the fact that her scenes were deleted from the finished product.
The lawsuit obtained by The Post alleges that the production company has continued to “deceive the public” by relying on the “world famous actress” to attract viewers by utilizing her “fame, radiance, and brilliance” to promote the film, despite the fact that none of the “Yesterday” film leads were famous.
Universal Pictures has attempted to dismiss the lawsuit, alleging that movie trailers are entitled to extensive First Amendment protection as “artistic, expressive works.”
“What is obvious about trailers in general and the ‘Yesterday’ trailer in particular is that they are expressive works in their own right and may not be relegated to a category of ‘purely commercial’ speech that receives diluted First Amendment protection,” Universal’s attorneys argued in a motion reviewed by BuzzFeed.
The company also argued that allowing the lawsuit to proceed would expose movie studios to “burdensome litigation whenever a viewer claimed to be disappointed with whether and how much of any person or scene they saw in the trailer was in the final film; with whether the movie fit the kind of genre they claimed to expect; or with any of an unlimited number of disappointments a viewer could claim,” according to Variety.
However, the attorneys for Woulfe and Rosza responded that their clients had never seen an actor in a movie’s trailer who did not appear in the film.
“Because consumers were promised a movie with Ana de Armas by the ‘Yesterday’ trailer, but did not receive a movie with any appearance of Ana de Armas, such consumers did not obtain any value for their rental or purchase,” the lawsuit stated.
US District Judge Stephen Wilson issued an order denying Universal’s motion to dismiss the action, stating that false advertising claims are only valid if a “significant portion” of “reasonable consumers” could be misled.
“Universal is correct that trailers entail some creativity and editorial discretion,” Wilson said, according to Variety. “However, this originality does not outweigh the commercial aspect of a trailer.” “At its essence, a trailer is an advertisement intended to promote a film by giving people a preview of the film.”
The complaint will now move to discovery and a motion for class certification to determine whether or not the trailer constitutes commercial speech subject to California’s False Advertising Law and Unfair Competition Law.
»Fans of Ana de Armas are suing the studios for deceptive advertising in ‘Yesterday.’«