Conor Woulfe, 38, and Peter Michael Rosza, 44, rented the 2019 romantic comedy Yesterday for $3.99 each thinking that actress Ana de Armas (No Time to Die) was in the movie – since she was in the preview they watched before their purchase.
The problem is that de Armas’ role in the rom-com – directed by Oscar winner Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) – was cut before it hit theaters. The trailer, however, still shows the actress in a scene. Now, Woulfe and Rosza are suing Universal for $5 million for deceptive marketing practices.
“Because consumers were promised a movie with Ana de Armas by the trailer for Yesterday but did not receive a movie with any appearance of Ana de Armas at all, such consumers were not provided with any value for their rental or purchase,” the lawsuit reads.
In 2019, Yesterday screenwriter Richard Curtis told CinemaBlend that de Armas was going to play a secondary love interest for the main character, but the subplot was abandoned in favor of keeping the primary romance front and center.
“That was a very traumatic cut because [de Armas] was brilliant in it,” Curtis said at the time. “I mean really radiant. And [that] turned out to be the problem. I think the audience did not like the fact that [the main character’s] eyes even strayed.”
Yesterday tells the story of an aspiring musician who wakes up in a world where no one except him knows the iconic English band The Beatles ever existed. So, he begins to pass their music off as his own and becomes an overnight sensation.
This year, Ana de Armas will star in three films – the psychological thriller Deep Water, the action thriller The Gray Man, and the biopic drama Blonde as screen legend Marilyn Monroe.