Ana De Armas Fans Sue Universal Studios For Cutting Her Scenes In 'Yesterday'

Ana de Armas' fans are suing Universal Studios after scenes featuring the actress were cut from the 2019 musical romance "Yesterday."

On Friday, two individuals filed a class-action lawsuit against the film studio, claiming that they each paid $3.99 to rent the 2019 film on Amazon Prime after seeing the "Knives Out" actress, 33, in the trailer, Us Weekly reported, citing court documents. After "Yesterday" concluded, however, they discovered that de Armas' scenes had been removed.

As a result, the two unnamed fans are suing for $5 million in damages on behalf of affected consumers, alleging that Universal Studios released "false, deceptive and misleading advertising" for the production, according to the documents.

"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," their complaint read.

The lawsuit described de Armas as a "talented, successful and famous actress." The fans alleged that the studio used her fame to market the movie, arguing that the other cast members were "largely unknown" before the film was released.

"For example, the actor which played protagonist Malik, Himesh Patel, had never acted or starred in a film prior to 'Yesterday,'" the lawsuit stated. "Similarly, the actress who played Ellie, Lily James, was a relatively unknown name to the casual movie watcher. Consequently, because none of the 'Yesterday' film leads were famous, Defendant could not rely on their fame to promote the movie to entice viewership."

In "Yesterday," Patel stars as Jack Malik, an English songwriter who — after a supernatural interference — is the only person who remembers The Beatles. While trying to get his loved ones to recall the band’s chart-topping hits, he ends up propelling to stardom when he took credit for their songs.

De Armas was set to appear as Malik's love interest, Roxanne, and was included in the film’s trailer and a deleted scene. The two met backstage at "The Late Late Show With James Corden" and quickly hit it off, according to the clip. However, test audiences were not pleased by the love triangle between them and Malik's childhood friend Ellie, played by James.

Screenwriter Richard Curtis explained to CinemaBlend in 2019 why they ultimately decided to cut de Armas' scenes. He admitted that it was "very traumatic" because the Cuba native was "brilliant" in it. However, he felt that they should cut de Armas' "radiant" performance to promote the romance between Ellie and Jack.

"I think the audience likes the story [about Ellie and Jack] and goes with that, and it works out well. What we’d originally done was had, I don’t want to describe it too much, but had Ana de Armas as a complicating factor when he arrived in L.A. for the first time," Curtis said.

He continued, "I think 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.’ 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."

Universal Studios and de Armas have not publicly commented on the lawsuit.