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Lesson: Cuba News 360 Writing
More than a year after being sued by two fans of Ana de Armas for her “deceptive” appearance in the tape “Yesterday”, the judge in charge of the case announced his verdict this week.
U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson ultimately dismissed the lawsuit, despite it being closer to the plaintiff’s position than Universal’s counterclaim last December.
At the time, Wilson said that film trailers actually involve “some creativity and editorial discretion” and are “advertisements designed to sell the film by providing the audience with a preview of it.”
However, it has now reversed course and ruled against the arguments of the plaintiffs, Connor Wolfe of Maryland and Peter Michael Rozza of San Diego, California, calling their actions “self-motivated”.
Ana de Armas actually appeared in the trailer for “Tomorrow” released in 2019 and for which the plaintiffs allege she paid $3.99 to rent. After viewing the tape and noticing Armas’ absence in the final version, he decided to accuse Universal Pictures of false advertising.
On his part, the film’s screenwriter Richard Curtis explained that the exclusion of the Cuban actress was due to the public’s disapproval of her distracting the main character’s main love interest.
As Curtis said, the cut was meant to be a “very painful” process, mainly due to de Armas’ outstanding performance. But this was not sufficient reason for the plaintiffs to dismiss their arguments and to say that if they had known that the Cuban woman had not appeared, they would not have rented the tape.
The American couple sought at least $5 million in compensation from Universal, supporting their claim that Universal took advantage of Ana de Armas’ fame to promote “Tomorrow” ahead of its premiere.
The plaintiff had previously watched the tape on Amazon Prime, and resorted to watching it a second time on Google Play, as the Island actress was cast as part of the cast on the said platform.
Despite all of this, the judge decided that the arguments “lacked validity”, based on the fact that the damage was self-inflicted and there was no evidence to suggest that Google Play “yesterday” The version will be different from the one seen on Amazon Prime.
Universal’s lawyers also supported the idea that the trailer is an artistic and expressive work that tells a three-minute story, which conveys the general theme of the film.
And although he confirmed that it was not common for the tapes to include scenes in progress that would not later be included in the final cut, he cited examples such as the popular “Jurassic Park” where this situation did occur.