Two Ana de Armas fans are attempting to sue Universal Pictures after they paid $3.99 to watch 2019's Yesterday on Amazon Prime Video, only to discover she wasn't even in it.
As per The Hollywood Reporter, Conor Woulfe and Peter Rosza are seeking a whopping $5m (£3.6m) in damages on behalf of all California and Maryland residents who watched the movie on the grounds that the studio used deceptive marketing.
As you can see in the trailer below, not to mention multiple others, de Armas appears for a fairly extensive scene (1:54) in which she is serenaded by protagonist Jack Malik, played by Himesh Patel.
The official complaint reads as follows: "Although Defendant included the scenes with Ms. De Armas in the movie trailer advertisements, for the purposes of promoting Yesterday and enticing film sales and rentals, Ms. De Armas is not and was never in the publicly released version of the movie."
It even goes so far as to allege that, “unable to rely on the fame of the actors playing Jack Malik or Ellie to maximize ticket and movie sales and rentals, Defendant consequently used Ms. De Armas’s fame, radiance and brilliance to promote the film by including her scenes in the movie trailers advertising Yesterday."
The Cuban-born Spanish actress was ultimately cut from the final edit of Danny Boyle's 2019 film because test screenings seemed to intimate that audiences didn't like the male lead appearing taken with her, which would have upset those invested in the love story between Jack and Lily James' character, Ellie.
You can see the full deleted scene here, as the 33-year-old appears on the sofa during a fictional episode of James Corden's Late Late Show:
Writer Richard Curtis insisted in an interview with Cinemablend that the decision was a "very traumatic cut because she was brilliant in it", the rationale being that she was so "radiant" that it was hard for Jack's head not to be turned even a little.
While we probably wouldn't go so far as to try and sue a studio for a film we paid the equivalent of three quid for on Amazon, we respect the absolute gall and extent of their fanship they are willing to go.
