Hollywood studio Universal Pictures has been sued by Ana de Armas fans for doing deceptive marketing who was featured in the trailer of Yesterday but was cut out in the movie.
Two fans, Conor Woulfe and Peter Michael Rosza filed a class-action lawsuit in the United States against Universal Pictures, the film’s US distributor by mentioning the advertising of the film in the 2019 movie Yesterday was “false,” “deceptive” and “misleading”. The fans told the BBC that they paid $3.99 to watch the movie on Amazon Prime for the actress and she was not a part of the movie which was shown in the trailer.
“Although defendant included the scenes with Ms de Armas in the movie trailer advertisements, for the purposes of promoting Yesterday and enticing film sales and rentals, Ms de Armas is not and was never in the publicly released version of the movie,” according to Daily Mail, the complaint filed by fans stated.
The lawsuit said that De Armas is a famous personality in America and even in the world and this is because of her successful movie and other media activities.
The lawsuit states de Armas is “famous throughout America and the world because of her successful movie and other media appearances.” The complaints that are filed are against using the actress for the trailer and doing marketing to make the film gain fame.
The movie is directed by British filmmaker Danny Boyle and is about singer and songwriter Jack who learns that he is the only person in the world who can only remember the Beatles after a bus accident. By performing songs by the greatest band and claiming them as his, Jack turns out to be an overnight sensation with the help of his agent.
Ana De Armas was ready to appear as a love attraction for Jack in the film but her scenes were removed during the final cut.
You can watch Yesterday’s trailer here:
According to the director, De Armas’s performance in the original film was “brilliant” and also describes her as “radiant”.
In 2019, Curtis told Cinemablend about the cut in De Armas character and were scared of the criticism that could be spread by the audience,’‘[De Armas] was brilliant … And [that] turned out to be the problem [as] the audience did not like the fact that his eyes even strayed. Because then some people would go, ‘Oh, he really doesn’t deserve her. He really doesn’t deserve Lily.’”
The lawsuit also claimed that Patel and James are “largely unknown” actors and the production didn’t rely on the two and used Ana De Armas for promotion. “Could not rely on their fame to promote the movie to entice viewership, used Ms De Armas’s fame, radiance and brilliance to promote the film … Ms De Armas, in contrast to the actors playing Jack Malik or Ellie, is famous and is a viewership draw by herself.” Lawsuit stated.
If you are wondering what role did Lily James played in the film, she played Ellie who is Jack’s (Himesh Patel) childhood best friend.