took more than two years, and the case of fans who shocked the Hollywood industry and sued Universal Pictures for "trailer fraud" has finally been settled a few days ago. After several rounds of games, the two parties ended in reconciliation.
fans asked for US$5 million in compensation, but almost lost US$120,000.
The two plaintiffs who sued Universal Pictures have starred in films such as "007: No Time to Die ", " Knives Out " and "Blonde Monroe". The biggest fans of Ana de Armas are Conor Woulfe from Maryland, USA and Peter Rosza from San Diego, California.
The cause of the incident can be traced back to 2021. Because I saw my idol appeared in the trailer of the film "Yesterday" produced by Universal Pictures, so after the film was officially launched on the Amazon on-demand platform, they released the film in 2021 respectively. In July and October of this year, I spent US$3.99 each to watch the film on demand. As a result, after watching the nearly two-hour video, they still didn't see Ana de Armas, which made them scream that they had been deceived. Especially Connor Woolf. According to his statement, he even paid to watch the so-called director's cut of "Yesterday" on Google's on-demand platform afterwards, hoping that his idol's scenes would appear in it, but he failed again. , resulting in a very depressed mood.
Ana de Armas, who appeared in the trailer for "Yesterday," does not appear in the main film.
It turns out that in this music-themed film directed by Danny Boyle, Ana de Armas is confirmed to make a cameo appearance. Although her role is small, she actually shot a lot of scenes and was also used in In promotional materials such as trailers. But in the post-editing stage, for some reason, director and screenwriter Richard Curtis decided to eliminate this branch content, so Ana de Armas's entire scene disappeared.
In January 2022, two fans filed a class action lawsuit against Universal Pictures as representatives of the victims on three counts of false advertising, unjust enrichment and unfair competition. The team of lawyers who took the initiative to represent the two in the lawsuit would naturally not let go of this good opportunity to gain both fame and fortune. They persuaded them to step up the game and demand collective compensation of up to US$5 million from Universal Pictures.
Universal Pictures sent a team of lawyers to request the court not to accept the lawsuit on the grounds that the movie trailer is a work of art, protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, falls within the scope of freedom of speech, and should not trigger criminal or civil litigation. . According to their point of view, film companies release so many trailers every year. If an audience can file a lawsuit if they feel that the finished film in the future does not match the trailers, then Hollywood film companies may have to fight endlessly. There's a lawsuit.
The person responsible for hearing the case is 83-year-old Judge Stephen Wilson of the Central District Court of California. By December 2022, after nearly a year of back-and-forth confrontation, he accepted the plaintiff's complaint on the grounds that the movie trailer was also a commercial advertisement and was also subject to the relevant provisions of the advertising law, which also excited the two fans.
However, in August 2023, after the unremitting efforts of Universal Picturesâ legal team, Judge Wilson changed his attitude and no longer accepted the US$5 million class action lawsuit proposed by the two plaintiffs. At this point, Connor Woolf and Peter Rosa have been pushed to the dangerous cliff of losing their wives and losing their troops. Because according to California law, in this case, they also need to pay the defendant Universal Pictures $120,000 and $6,705 in attorney fees incurred in responding to the lawsuit.
However, last week, news finally broke that the two fans had reached a settlement agreement with Universal Pictures. Although the terms of the final settlement have not been announced to the public, it seems that fans will at least not have to pay for legal fees out of their own pockets.
"Yesterday's Miracle" (2019) poster
Both parties reached a settlement, but neither party was satisfied with the outcome
Although the case seemed to have ended peacefully, neither party was actually very satisfied.Universal believes that this matter is detrimental to its image as a major Hollywood studio; while the plaintiff's legal team believes that this matter is proof that Hollywood, as a major player, enjoys legal protection in its home state of California, covering the sky with one hand. However, judging from the documents provided by the court, it is not entirely unreasonable for the judge not to accept the class action lawsuit of the two plaintiffs.
According to the plaintiffâs lawyer, there must be many, many more consumers who have been deceived like the plaintiff. Every viewer who has purchased a movie ticket for âYesterdayâs Miracleâ or has ordered the film on any platform is among themââ As of press time, the film has more than 15,000 reviews on the domestic website Douban alone; the film was introduced to Chinese cinemas in August 2019, and is currently available for viewing on on-demand platforms such as Tencent for a fee - so of course it can be watched with its Serve as a victim representative in filing a class action lawsuit.
But in Universal Picturesâ view, this statement lacks solid evidence. Because it cannot be proven that the reason why everyone watched the film was because they watched the trailer and had expectations for Armas' appearance. Therefore, the lawsuit filed by the two plaintiffs can only represent themselves and cannot represent the majority of consumers. If they really need to compensate, the most they can do is compensate them for their respective on-demand fees of US$3.99. It is impossible to compensate them for US$5 million.
Under this circumstance, the judge made a new ruling in August 2023, blocking the path to class action litigation. If the two plaintiffs insist on suing Universal Pictures for false publicity, they can file a separate lawsuit, but only for false publicity. As for the two charges of unjust enrichment and unfair competition, they are not suitable. The judge even pointed out that Connor Woolf's payment to watch the so-called director's cut on Google's on-demand platform was entirely based on his own belief that his idol would appear in this version, rather than any misdirection by Universal Pictures. , so his hope was frustrated again only because of his own misunderstanding.
In California local law and US law, there are so-called anti-slapp lawsuit regulations. The so-called slapp is the abbreviation of "strategic lawsuit against public participation". It refers to a situation where companies or public figures initiate lawsuits against rights defenders in order to silence the public, making the other party unable to bear the energy and effort. A litigation strategy that voluntarily gives up on rights protection due to the loss of labor, time and material resources. In order to protect vulnerable individuals and prevent powerful parties from abusing slapp, California and other places have their own anti-slapp litigation regulations. To put it simply, the party filing the lawsuit should bear the legal fees of the other party, so that vulnerable groups will no longer use legal weapons for fear of being unable to pay the huge fees. But in practice, this kind of anti-slapp litigation regulations is often exploited by powerful parties, as was the case with the Universal Pictures legal team this time.
Because the class action lawsuit filed by the two fans was ultimately not accepted by the court, the defendant, Universal Pictures, could resort to anti-slapp litigation weapons and require the two to pay their attorney fees. Universal's chief attorney, Kelly Klaus, charges $1,158 per hour, which brings the total fee to $672,000. Universal only asked the two plaintiffs to repay US$472,000 out of "high integrity". In the end, the "kind" Judge Wilson further reduced the fee to $120,000 and $6,705. However, this was enough to make the two plaintiffs complain endlessly.
At first, the attorneys for the two men continued to maintain a strong stance and stated that they would not give up the lawsuit. The next step was to interview viewers who had watched the trailer of "Yesterday's Miracle" to find more witnesses and evidence. It is believed that they will be re-raised later. A class action motion may be approved by a judge. In January this year, the plaintiff's legal team proposed a new agreement, stating that the two clients were willing to give up the lawsuit completely, and only hoped that Universal Pictures could pay a one-time compensation of US$750,000, and everyone would pretend that this matter had never happened.
Naturally, Universal Pictures cannot accept this request.They said in a letter to the court, "The plaintiffs' attorneys who filed the lawsuit and spent two years fighting this frivolous case are once again trying to pressure Universal Pictures to pay a huge compensation of $750,000 ( And there is no legal or factual basis to support them) to settle a case worth only US$7.98.â In this regard, they filed a motion with the court to fine the plaintiff an additional US$43,000. According to the original agenda, the lawsuit will begin the review process on April 30.
Against this background, the two plaintiffs and their attorneys seemed to have finally made up their minds and reached a final compromise with Universal Pictures. As a result, this "trailer fraud" lawsuit that lasted for more than two years has come to an end.
