Fans sue over Ana De Armas being cut out of Danny Boyle’s Yesterday

You know how it is: You’re navigating the endless, Library Of Babel-esque wall of content that makes up the catalog of most every streaming service and online video storefront in existence, desperately trying to find something that will recommend one movie over the literal thousands of others you could be watching at any given moment. Suddenly, something catches your eye, and a flicker of memory ignites. “Hey,” you, hypothetical decision paralysis victim, say to yourself, as the Danny Boyle movie Yesterday scrolls past, “Isn’t Ana De Armas in this one?”

Twist ending: She’s not. And now it’s time to get the lawyers involved.

That’s the premise of a new lawsuit launched against Universal Pictures this weekend, as two people—Conor Woulfe and Peter Michael Rosza—have issued a federal class action suit against the studio, claiming it employed false advertising by using footage of the Knives Out star in the trailer for Yesterday, a film she was ultimately cut out of.

Per Deadline, the suit alleges that “Among other deceptions, Defendant’s nationwide advertising and promotion of the movie Yesterday represents to prospective movie viewers that the world famous actress Ana De Armas has a substantial character role in the film. Defendant’s movie Yesterday, however, fails to include any appearance of Ana De Armas whatsoever.”

(Note: We would love it some variant of that last sentence could appear in every legal document about any movie that fail to include any appearance of Ana De Armas whatsoever, regardless of whether said lawsuit is actually about Ana De Armas.)

Woulfe and Rosza say they each, separately, paid $3.99 to rent Yesterday from Amazon, with the key decision-making factor in both purchases being De Armas’ alleged appearance in the film. Also, they’re suing for $5 million, class-action style, presumably on the assumption that roughly 1.25 million other De Armas heads were similarly duped.

De Armas was originally set to appear in the film as a secondary love interest for Himesh Patel’s character, who apparently forgets his maybe-girlfriend Lily James as swiftly as the rest of the world forgot the music of The Beatles. (“Oh, you go at this point, “That movie.”) Test audiences apparently found that the subplot made Patel’s character Jack—an international con artist who humiliates poor Ed Sheeran in front of the world for no good reason—unsympathetic.

Variety notes that Rosza and Woulfe’s suit resembles a 2011 lawsuit in Michigan, in which a car chase fan sued because Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive wasn’t the “high speed action driving film” that the trailer supposedly promised. (An appeals court dismissed the case.)

So far, Universal—and you’ll be shocked to hear this—has declined to comment on the…



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