Peter Rosza and Conor Woulfe, two men who sued Universal Pictures after actress Ana de Armas was cut from the film Yesterday, have settled their case with the studio. The fans cried false advertising after the star failed to appear in the movie, and the case has gone back and forth a number of times. The initial lawsuit was filed in 2022, arguing that the plaintiffs had rented the movie under false pretense, because they would not have had interest in the movie if de Armas wasn’t in it. Rosza, Woulfe, and Universal filed a joint settlement with the court today, although the terms were not disclosed publicly.
There is a long and well-documented history of scenes and even characters appearing in movie trailers, then being cut before the movie hit theaters. Universal argued that trailers were artistic expression protected by the First Amendment, and should be exempt from the limits put on commercial speech, but U.S. District Judge Steven Wilson disagreed.
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“Universal is correct that trailers involve some creativity and editorial discretion, but this creativity does not outweigh the commercial nature of a trailer,” Wilson wrote in a ruling. “At its core, a trailer is an advertisement designed to sell a movie by providing consumers with a preview of the movie.”
It isn’t uncommon for elements of the movie to be emphasized for the trailer, when those elements are seen to be commercially promising. Alex Garland’s recent movie Civil War has drawn some criticism for being marketed as an action movie, when most of the action in the 2-hour movie can be (and was!) fit into the two-minute trailer for the film.
Universal unsuccessfully argued that classifying movie trailers as “commercial speech” could leave them, and others in Hollywood, open to further lawsuits. One recent example came in the form of a threat of a lawsuit by a Suicide Squad audience member that believed Jared Leto’s Joker would have a more prominent role.
While Universal took a loss on First Amendment grounds, there were other aspects of the lawsuit that the court dismissed — leaving the plaintiffs responsible for a share of the studio’s legal fees. In part, this was because class action lawyer Cody R. LeJeune unsuccessfully argued that everyone who bought a ticket or paid a rental fee to watch Yesterday could be considered part of a class for the purposes of the suit. Wilson dismissed that motion as “patently inadequate.”
Yesterday centered on a singer-songwriter who one day wakes up to discover he is the only person in the world who remembers The Beatles. Seeing an opportunity, he records all their songs, becoming a global pop sensation but creating tension in his personal life, particularly with his partner, played by Lily James.
Per Entertainment Weekly, de Armas was there as a potential alternative love interest — someone who would briefly spark interest, but then remind Jack (Himesh Patel) what he really wanted. Writer Richard Curtis has since said that test audiences didn’t like the idea of Jack being tempted, and so the subplot was cut.
