The lawsuit accuses Universal of participating in deceptive marketing and states, “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.“Universal asked the federal judge to dismiss the case, but on Tuesday, Dec. 20, the judge ruled that movie studios can be sued over false advertising in film trailers.The film production company had argued that the trailer with de Armas was protected under the First Amendment and claimed that trailers sometimes include scenes that do not appear in the final version of films. “Universal is correct that trailers involve some creativity and editorial discretion, but this creativity does not outweigh the commercial nature of a trailer,” wrote U.S. District Judge Steven Wilson. “At its core, a trailer is an advertisement designed to sell a movie by providing consumers with a preview of the movie.” Yesterday is a romantic comedy that follows a musician portrayed by Himesh Patel, who discovers that he’s the only person to have ever heard of the Beatles, and later on becomes famous after reintroducing their songs to the world.De Armas’ role was to play a love interest to Patel’s character, putting him in a love triangle with Lily James’ character, but test audiences did not approve of the storyline and only wanted Patel to have one love interest in the film, which forced Universal to cut de Armas from the final version of the film.
