The lawsuit filed by two viewers who rented Yesterday after seeing Ana de Armas in its trailer settled in April 2024 with no money changing hands: the plaintiffs dropped their case with prejudice, and Universal Pictures waived the $126,705 in legal fees a federal judge had ordered them to pay. Before it ended, the case produced what appears to be the first ruling that a movie trailer is commercial speech subject to false advertising laws.
Why the Trailer Became a Lawsuit
Ana de Armas was cast in Yesterday as Roxanne, a potential love interest for Himesh Patel’s character. Test audiences rejected the subplot. Writer Richard Curtis said viewers felt the protagonist’s wandering attention was “a betrayal” of his relationship with Lily James’s character. Curtis called the removal “a very traumatic cut” but said he and director Danny Boyle agreed her scenes had to go “for the sake of the whole.”1BBC. Ana de Armas Cut From Yesterday
Even after de Armas was cut, at least one trailer kept her in it, showing her as a guest on James Corden’s talk show reacting to Patel’s character performing “Something.”2Far Out Magazine. Ana de Armas Cut From Danny Boyle’s Yesterday The trailer was never revised. That gap between the marketing and the finished film is what the plaintiffs sued over.
Who Sued and What They Wanted
Peter Michael Rosza and Conor Woulfe each paid $3.99 to rent Yesterday on Amazon Prime after seeing de Armas in the trailer. When she never appeared in the film, they filed suit on January 21, 2022 in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, bringing claims for false advertising, unjust enrichment, and unfair competition under California’s consumer protection statutes.3CourtListener. Conor Woulfe v. Universal City Studios LLC Docket
Their combined personal loss was $7.98. But they sought class certification on behalf of all misled renters and buyers, and asked for at least $5 million in damages.4Rolling Stone. Ana de Armas Yesterday Lawsuit Universal
The Ruling That Made the Case Matter
Universal moved to dismiss, arguing that trailers are “artistic, expressive works” protected by the First Amendment and that treating them as advertisements would invite lawsuits from any disappointed viewer.5BuzzFeed News. Ana de Armas Movie Trailer Lawsuit In December 2022, Judge Stephen Wilson rejected that argument. Applying the factors from Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corp., he found a trailer is fundamentally “an advertisement designed to sell a movie by providing consumers with a preview of the movie,” and that the creativity involved in cutting one “does not outweigh” its commercial nature.6Variety. Ana de Armas Yesterday False Advertising Ruling
Wilson drew a tight boundary around his own ruling. It applied only to “representations as to whether an actress or scene is in the movie, and nothing else,” not to subjective complaints about a film’s tone, quality, or genre.6Variety. Ana de Armas Yesterday False Advertising Ruling The court dismissed the plaintiffs’ Lanham Act claims for lack of competitive injury but allowed the state-law claims to move to discovery.7Fordham Intellectual Property Law Journal. Out of Sight, Not Out of Mind: False Advertising in Movie Trailers
How the Case Fell Apart
In August 2023, Judge Wilson dismissed the proposed class action, calling the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification “patently inadequate.”8Variety. Ana de Armas Yesterday Trailer Lawsuit Settled He also found much of the alleged harm self-inflicted. Woulfe had rented the film a second time on Google Play after learning de Armas was not in it, which the judge said made it “not plausible” for him to claim he had been deceived.9The Guardian. Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Claiming Yesterday Trailer Tricked Ana de Armas Fans The individual false-advertising claims survived, and a trial was set for May 21, 2024.
Meanwhile the plaintiffs faced a bill. Because product liability claims had been dismissed, Universal was the prevailing party on that portion under California’s anti-SLAPP statute and could recover its legal fees. Universal sought $472,000; Wilson awarded $126,705, remarking that “modern law firms are neither eleemosynary nor altruistic.” The studio also filed a separate motion seeking $43,000 in sanctions against the plaintiffs’ attorneys, accusing them of abusing discovery and pressuring Universal to settle a case worth $7.98.10Yahoo Entertainment. Two Ana de Armas Fans Settle Lawsuit Against Universal
The Settlement Terms
On April 12, 2024, the two sides told the court they had reached a deal. Terms were disclosed in a filing on April 18. Rosza and Woulfe received no money and agreed to drop the suit with prejudice. In exchange, Universal waived the $126,705 in fees the court had ordered the plaintiffs to pay.8Variety. Ana de Armas Yesterday Trailer Lawsuit Settled The pending sanctions motion became moot.10Yahoo Entertainment. Two Ana de Armas Fans Settle Lawsuit Against Universal The case was formally terminated on April 22, 2024.3CourtListener. Conor Woulfe v. Universal City Studios LLC Docket
Both sides walked away with nothing. The plaintiffs escaped a fee obligation nearly 16,000 times their original $7.98 loss. Universal avoided a trial that would have drawn fresh attention to the precedent its own trailer had created.
What the Ruling Means Now
The commercial-speech ruling outlasted the settlement. Legal scholars at Harvard and Fordham described it as apparently the first time a court held that studios could face false advertising liability for the content of a movie trailer.11Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law. Woulfe v. Universal and Trailer Commercial Speech
Its reach is narrow. Wilson’s holding covers factual misrepresentations about whether a specific actor or scene appears in the finished film. It does not cover subjective disappointment with a movie’s tone or quality, and it does not reach the routine practice of including footage in a trailer that gets trimmed from the final cut, so long as no featured performer is entirely absent from the film.6Variety. Ana de Armas Yesterday False Advertising Ruling
Because the case settled before trial, no appellate court has reviewed Wilson’s holding. There is no Ninth Circuit opinion on it, and the U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on whether advertisements for First Amendment-protected works receive the same constitutional protection as the works themselves.11Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law. Woulfe v. Universal and Trailer Commercial Speech The Woulfe decision stands as a district-court ruling with persuasive but not binding authority.