Universal Studio received a legal complaint in 2022 for including Ana de Armas in a trailer for the film “Yesterday”, even though the Cuban actress was eliminated from the final cut. There began a soap opera that today comes to an end. Two followers of the actress sued the studio for false advertising in 2019 and now, according to Variety magazine, they reached an agreement last week.
Fans argued that the studio’s advertising in the film was “false, misleading and wrong” because they included the actress in the marketing materials. Woulfe and Rosza, Ana de Armas fans, claim that each of them paid $3.99 to buy the film and maintain that they did so because they wanted to see the artist.
The film “Yesterday”, directed by British film director Danny Boyle, tells the life of a singer-songwriter who dreams of fame and after an accident realizes that he is the only person on Earth who remembers the Beatles. The performer Ana de Armas plays a romantic role alongside the protagonist but her scenes were deleted in the latest edition of the film.
The studio defends that they never wanted to deceive the public but that the decision to eliminate the character came much later and argues that the market forces them to publish trailers long before the premiere, “movie trailers are works of art and, therefore, “They should be protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.”
Federal Judge Stephen Wilson ruled that “Universal is correct to the defense that there is a creative factor involved in the trailers” and concluded that a trailer is “commercial speech” subject to false advertising laws. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed but the plaintiffs were not granted the millionaire sum they requested.
