Two Ana de Armas Fans Sue Universal Because Their Girl Isn’t Really in ‘Yesterday’

Two men, Conor Woulfe of Maryland and Peter Michael Rosza of California, have filed a federal class-action lawsuit against Universal because the actress Ana de Armas never actually appears in the film Yesterday, Variety reports. 

“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,” their lawsuit reads.

The 2019 Danny Boyle alternate-reality film stars Himesh Patel, who finds himself in a world where the Beatles never existed. But we live in a world where absurd lawsuits still exist, so attorney Cody R. Lejeune is representing these two men, who each spent $3.99 to rent the motion picture, which boasts an 89-percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. (Peter Travers called the movie “a light summer breeze of escapist fun.”)

Here’s why these viewers were apparently disappointed: De Armas was initially cast to appear as a potential love interest named Roxanne, whom our main character would meet on the set of a James Corden-led chat show. (This would have led to him serenading her with the Abbey Road track “Something,” written by George Harrison.) But Yesterday screenwriter Richard Curtis explained in an interview that the sequence was cut after test screenings. 

“That was a very traumatic cut, because she was brilliant in it. I mean really radiant,” he recalled. But he noted that audiences didn’t like that Patel’s “eyes even strayed” from his true love, played by Lily James. Nevertheless, de Armas stayed in the trailer. For a few wordless seconds. 

You can see her at the 1:50 mark here:

Granted, a close-up of de Armas’s swooning visage is absolutely a draw, though her star-making turn in Knives Out was still a few months from release when Yesterday came out. But we suspect that a judge might quickly decide that Boyle’s film hinges on its fantasy premise and new versions of “Let It Be” and “Hey Jude,” not a cameo appearance, meaning this case will soon be resolved. 

Then again, we may be wrong. This case is reminiscent of a lawsuit Sarah Deming filed in October 2011 against the movie Drive. At the time, she charged that the film’s trailer implied an action-adventure film loaded with vehicular stunts, like something from the Fast and Furious franchise, and felt cheated by Ryan Gosling’s brooding turn in Nicolas Winding Refn’s edgy drama. Moreover, she accused the movie of being antisemitic, and promoting “criminal violence against members of the Jewish faith.” (We can only surmise this is because Albert Brooks plays a bad guy in the film. And is awesome in it, by the way.)