The plot of Danny Boyle and Richard Curtis’s film Yesterday rests on the engaging premise of a universe in which The Beatles never existed.
Now two cinema fans are suing the makers of the film because their favourite actress was wiped from its story line, as if - like the Fab Four - she had never been.
Ana de Armas was lined up to play the central character’s US love interest, with all her scenes filmed and her appearance even promoted in the film’s trailer alongside British star Himesh Patel.
But when Conor Woulfe and Peter Rosza rented Yesterday on Amazon Prime, on what they claim was the basis of Armas’s promised role, they discovered her entire part had been left on the cutting room floor.
The pair are now claiming that Yesterday’s makers, Universal Pictures, engaged in “deceptive marketing” and are suing the film giant for $5 million. The pair say they are bringing the case on behalf of other disgruntled film fans annoyed at the erasure of the Cuban-Spanish actress.
In legal documents filed with the United States District Court in California, Mr Woulfe, from Maryland, and Mr Rosza, from San Diego, claim that 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.”
They add: “Yesterday, however, fails to include any appearance of Ana De Armas whatsoever. Accordingly, [Universal Pictures’] advertising and promotion of the movie Yesterday is false, misleading, and deceptive.”
In the film, directed by Boyle and written by Curtis, Patel plays Jack Malik, who following a collision with a bus wakes to find he is the only person on Earth who remembers the Beatles.
By reintroducing the world to the band’s songs - and effectively claiming credit for the genius of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr - Malik shoots to stardom.
De Armas - who starred in Knives Out and No Time to Die - was to appear as Roxanne, who is introduced to Malik on the set of James Corden’s talk show, where he serenades her with a rendition of George Harrison’s song “Something.”
But when Curtis and Boyle discovered that preview audiences hated the notion of Malik straying from his girlfriend back home in Britain, played by Lily James, they cut de Armas’s part altogether.
Curtis said after the film’s release: “That was a very traumatic cut, because she was brilliant in it. I mean really radiant. You know, 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 that de Armas’s character had been written as “a complicating factor when he [Jack] arrived in L.A. for the first time”, but that “the audience did not like the fact that his eyes even strayed. Because then some people would go, ‘Oh, he really doesn’t deserve her. He really doesn’t deserve Lily”.
But Mr Woulfe and Mr Rosza claim they and other film fans were misled by Yesterday’s promotional material into thinking their favourite actor would be playing a key role.
Their writ 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.”
Commentators have pointed to parallels with a case brought against the makers of the film “Drive” in 2011. In that case, a woman alleged that the trailer gave the impression the film would be a “high speed action driving film” and she was not prepared for its slow-paced interpersonal drama punctuated with graphic violence.
An appeals court in Michigan dismissed the case, ruling that the trailer was not deceptive.
Universal Pictures declined to comment.
