Loyal fans can be tough guys, including in the cinema, of course. Fans Conor Woulfe and Peter Michael Rosza paid $3.99 each to see the film “Yesterday” on the streaming service Amazon Prime – an atmospheric homage to the music of the Beatles, 2019, directed by Danny Boyle. The film takes place in a fantastic alternative world in which, for mysterious reasons, no one knows that the Fabulous Four and their magical songs existed. Only one remembers, Jack Malik, played by Himesh Patel, and miraculously he knows all the lyrics and all the melodies and can sing the songs to people around him – and pretend he composed them himself. In a talk show he is allowed to sit next to a gorgeous woman and is “inspired” by her presence to write the song “Something”. The young woman is Ana de Armas, the Cuban actress who starred in the Bond film ‘No Time To Die’ and the first ‘Knives Out’ film, both starring Daniel Craig, and this year in the Netflix production ‘Blonde ” Marilyn Monroe impersonated. The trailer for ‘Yesterday’ featured the talk show scene – and Woulfe and Rozsa were dying to see Ana de Armas, but then realized all of their scenes were cut from the finished film.
As part of a class action lawsuit with other disappointed fans, the two sued the film studio Universal. A few days ago, a district judge in California ruled that the lawsuit should be allowed. It’s about five million dollars in damages. Universal’s attorneys argued that movie trailers are “non-commercial” but an artistic work – an entire film narrated in three minutes – and thus are subject to the right to free speech. (A trailer for Universal’s Jurassic Park, they said, was made up of scenes that weren’t actually in the film.) According to the judge, however, a theatrical trailer—no matter how creative it might be—is advertising and therefore unlawful unfair competition.
A trailer as a sham, the problem is not really new. (And in view of the rising cost of living, deceptive packages are being discussed more again.) The cinema operates specifically with our wishes and ideas – and with our willingness to allow ourselves to be seduced. What we see into a trailer and then into the film, the discrepancy between our expectations and what is shown on screen, is hardly measurable or justiciable.