The Ana De Armas Yesterday Lawsuit Controversy Fully Explained
So, you might have heard of a little British movie called "Yesterday" that's been all over the headlines. The 2019 movie made some waves when it was released (and again almost three years later), as the Danny Boyle directed production — which was based on a screenplay by none other than "Notting Hill," "Bridget Jones's Diary," and "Love Actually"'s Richard Curtis — brought the iconic music of The Beatles back to life.
The story saw Himesh Patel take on the role of Jack Malik, who finds himself as one of only a handful of people who can remember the music of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, and chooses to shoot to worldwide fame by claiming the songs as his own.
"Yesterday" also stars some other huge names, with Ed Sheeran appearing as himself in several scenes (including an epic song-off against Patel's Malek), as well as "Cinderella" and "Pam & Tommy"'s Lily James, plus "Saturday Night Live" comedian Kate McKinnon.
But did you know that none other than Ana de Armas was also originally in the production? And it's her involvement — or lack thereof, maybe we should say — that has two fans of the "No Time to Die" star getting litigious.
Ana de Armas' fans are fuming
Universal found itself involved in a legal battle after two Ana de Armas fans sued the company because she didn't feature in the movie as they claimed was advertised. Conor Woulfe and Peter Michael Rosza filed a class action complaint against the movie studio after allegedly renting the movie on Amazon Prime Video (spending $3.99) only to discover that de Armas' scenes as the character Roxy had been left on the cutting room floor, per Fox News.
The two accused Universal of using "deceptive marketing," according to the outlet, alleging they felt duped into watching the movie after seeing de Armas in the trailer — but found she was not featured at all in the final cut. Notably, the star can still be seen in a trailer available on YouTube, with one scene showing Himesh Patel's Jack Malik singing to Armas during an appearance on "The Late Late Show with James Corden."
As for how much the two are looking for? That would be $5 million.
Richard Curtis opened up about the "very traumatic cut" while speaking to Cinema Blend in 2019. He claimed de Armas' character was "a complicating factor" for Malik and "the audience did not like the fact that his eyes even strayed" as he (spoiler alert!) ended up with Lily James' Ellie Appleton. Curtis went on to call them "some of our favorite scenes from the film" but explained, "we had to cut them for the sake of the whole."