Ana de Armas fans are suing Universal for $5 million in a class action lawsuit over the 2019 film Yesterday.
The fans, named Conor Woulfe and Peter Michael Rosza, each rented the film from Amazon Prime Video for $3.99, and discovered de Armas hadn’t made it to the finished movie, despite appearing in the trailer.
“Among other deceptions, [Universal’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,” the lawsuit alleges. “[Universal’s] movie Yesterday, however, fails to include any appearance from Ana De Armas whatsoever. Accordingly, [Universal’s] advertising and promotion of the movie Yesterday is false, misleading, and deceptive.” You can view the entire lawsuit over at Variety (opens in new tab).
The film follows musician Jack Malik (Himesh Patel), who discovers himself in a world with no knowledge of The Beatles – and then pretends the band’s music is his own. The film co-stars Lily James as Jack’s love interest Ellie and was directed by Danny Boyle. The cut de Armas scene in question saw Jack play her the song “Something” on a talk show.
“That was a very traumatic cut, because she was brilliant in it. I mean really radiant,” Boyle told CinemaBlend (opens in new tab) of de Armas’ role. “And [that] turned out to be the problem… I think the audience likes the story [about Ellie and Jack] and goes with that, and it works out well.” He added that having a competing love interest would have made some viewers think Jack was undeserving of Ellie.
“It’s one of those things where it’s some of our favorite scenes from the film, but we had to cut them for the sake of the whole,” he explained.
De Armas recently appeared in No Time to Die, and has upcoming roles in Netflix’s The Gray Man, and erotic thriller Deep Water opposite Ben Affleck.
While you wait for more from de Armas, check out our guide to all of 2022’s major movie release dates to get planning those theater trips.