Yesterday (Danny Boyle, 2019)

[swo17]

Hopefully this suit opens up the floodgates

[colinr0380]

*cough* all those actors in recent Terrence Malick films *cough*

[knives]

There are actors in Malick films?

[MichaelB]

I'm surprised nobody's sued over All the Money in the World failing to deliver the originally trailed Kevin Spacey, although I daresay in that instance the story of how he was expunged from the film became so widely reported that it's fairly inconceivable that you'd have been aware of the initial marketing but not of what happened subsequently.

Trailers with "false advertising" is an interesting one, because of course very early trailers often do feature elements that don't make it into the final cut - the one for The Border (1981) contains what I think is the only public airing of footage from the original ending, while the one for the ill-fated The Avengers (1998) apparently includes quite a bit of stuff that didn't make the final cut as a result of the desperate going-over that the film was given in post-production.

I've performed HD reconstructions of quite a few trailers that only survived as scratchy 35mm prints or VHS-quality dupes, and there's always a bit of suspense when I log the shots to see if I can reliably match every single one - and sometimes the job turns out to be impossible because I simply don't have the right footage. This is one of mine - it seems that HandMade Films junked its entire archive of ancillary materials at some point in the 1990s to save on storage costs, so all I had to work from was a 4:3-framed VHS dupe, although thankfully all the shots made it into the final cut and so the only labour-intensive part was recreating the end credits and getting them to look like film rather than digital. (The original theatrical trailer was most likely cropped to 1.85:1 for practical reasons, but I didn't have a reference for that and it seemed like needlessly pedantic overkill.)

What's even more common is the use of temporary music tracks (for obvious reasons; the final soundtrack most likely won't have been composed yet), which is why pretty much any British person creases up laughing whenever they watch the trailer for Pale Rider (1985).

(Even when the trailer was first released, that music had already been the theme tune for Britain's Channel 4 News for nearly three years, and this remains the case to this day, but presumably - and, of course, reasonably - nobody outside the UK knew anything about this.)

[Dylan]

What a weird story this is. I honestly don't understand the mindset of somebody going through with such a lawsuit. Though it seems somewhat less ubiquitous these days than it used to be, I don't think it's exceptional at all for a trailer to feature deleted/alternate scenes or a glimpse from an excised plot point. Somewhat recently, I believe the trailer - or one of them - for Rogue One was comprised almost entirely of shots from scenes that didn't make the final film. Even more recently, the trailer for Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood includes quite a few glimpses of scenes that aren't in the film (i.e. Sharon Tate rising out of the pool). It also doesn't seem exceptional for a film to delete a character if - after innumerable hours of post-production - the filmmakers collectively decide that the film arguably works better without them, and it seems perfectly reasonable to make this decision even after a trailer has been released that features shots of said character. I feel like this lawsuit won't get very far, but again, it's the mindset and how far somebody would take this that really puzzles me.

[colinr0380]

It sounds like it could be the plot of Danny Boyle's next movie: two down on their luck people about to get evicted from their apartment spend their last $4.99 renting out a film just for the slight pick-me-up of seeing their favourite actress, and then when she doesn't appear get so angry they decide to sue the filmmaker for everything he's worth, eventually becoming media stars and having to answer Who Wants To Be A Millionaire-style questions in the courtroom as to the harrowing nature of their distress caused by the filmmaker. They even get to see their favourite actress in the flesh when she gets subpoenaed to the witness stand to give testimony about her treatment on the film. ("They... they told me... I'm sorry, I need a moment. They told me that *sniff* that... that I would distract the viewer's attention from Ed Sheeran if my scenes stayed in" *breaks down into uncontrollable tears as the Jury gasps and mutters*)

Then just as our protagonists are leaving the courtroom with their suitcases full of unmarked dollar bills and unwisely decide to happily skip through a darkened alley, that's when Danny Boyle and Richard Curtis block off either end of the alleyway and send their Shallow Grave or Trance-style heavies to bludgeon them into a pulp. Maybe with the option of Danny Boyle throwing a crumpled up $10 bill onto the bodies (with a gruffly barked: "Keep the change") as the coup de grace final shot.

[MichaelB]

What a weird story this is. I honestly don't understand the mindset of somebody going through with such a lawsuit. Though it seems somewhat less ubiquitous these days than it used to be, I don't think it's exceptional at all for a trailer to feature deleted/alternate scenes or a glimpse from an excised plot point. Somewhat recently, I believe the trailer - or one of them - for Rogue One was comprised almost entirely of shots from scenes that didn't make the final film. Even more recently, the trailer for Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood includes quite a few glimpses of scenes that aren't in the film (i.e. Sharon Tate rising out of the pool). It also doesn't seem exceptional for a film to delete a character if - after innumerable hours of post-production - the filmmakers collectively decide that the film arguably works better without them, and it seems perfectly reasonable to make this decision even after a trailer has been released that features shots of said character. I feel like this lawsuit won't get very far, but again, it's the mindset and how far somebody would take this that really puzzles me.

Yes, trailers have featured subsequently deleted footage practically since the medium was invented; it's totally normal practice, and indeed unavoidable given film production schedules and the need to have trailers circulating well before the actual feature has been completed. I remember bailing out on a commissioned HD upgrade of a trailer for a 1950s film because too much footage didn't make it to the final cut.

But yes, it's always worth remembering that "successful lawsuits" is going to amount to the most minuscule fraction of "filed lawsuits". A lot of the time, they don't even get as far as a court hearing because they've so obviously been filed in bad faith - I mean, these people can afford what I assume is thousands of dollars to file a lawsuit, ostensibly because they felt they've been cheated out of $2.99? I can't see a judge taking that seriously.

[Roger Ryan]

I'm still peeved that I can't see the original "boarding house" ending to Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons promised in the trailer - can I sue Warner Home Entertainment now that RKO no longer exists?

Given that I thought removing most of the romantic subplot would improve Yesterday, I guess I would theoretically agree with deleting the Ana de Armas scene(s). But since there is so much time wasted on the subplot, not having de Armas in there now does seem disappointing!

[domino harvey]

As someone mentioned on Reddit, the deleted scenes exist but also feature more James Corden screentime, so be careful what you wish for!

[Aunt Peg]

Much ado about nothing really.

I used to collect lobby cards and occasionally there would be a card in the set which didn't end up in the final cut of the film. Costa-Gavras' Missing (1982) being a case in point.

Finished films with scenes missing from trailers has been going on for years. The lawsuit will end up in the toilet where it belongs.

[Lemmy Caution]

Movie fans disappointed that their favorite actor was cut from a film after appearing in the trailer can sue the studio for false advertising, a US judge has ruled.

Two film buffs say Universal Pictures tricked them into renting 2019 flick "Yesterday" because the trailer featured actress Ana de Armas.

[domino harvey]

Interesting, I don’t think this lawsuit was expected to be allowed to proceed. I understand the reasoning, but what’s next? Suing Disney because Felicity Jones didn’t say “I rebel” in Rogue One? Hollywood re-edits and reshoots all the time, it’s the responsibility of the viewer to look at the cast list if that kind of thing is important to them. Will be curious to see how this goes

[tenia]

I also find it weird that it's what triggers such a lawsuit : 1 sec of De Armas in a trailer where she looks like she was just another guest of Corden, in a movie that already looks like it very heavily borrowed from 2 others movies and 2 books and might actually have been sued for this instead.

[domino harvey]

Thirst watchers finally get their day in court

[MV88]

Interesting, I don’t think this lawsuit was expected to be allowed to proceed. I understand the reasoning, but what’s next? Suing Disney because Felicity Jones didn’t say “I rebel” in Rogue One? Hollywood re-edits and reshoots all the time, it’s the responsibility of the viewer to look at the cast list if that kind of thing is important to them. Will be curious to see how this goes

I imagine the easiest solution would be for studios to start adding disclaimers at the end of trailers along the lines of “finalized film subject to change.”

[therewillbeblus]

I was disappointed we didn’t get a few scenes from Licorice Pizza that were in the trailer, does this mean I can get a therewillbeblus’ cut?

[thirtyframesasecond]

I'd prefer not to advertise that I'd seen the terrible movie Yesterday.

[hearthesilence]

SpoilerShow

Speaking of "what if Lennon lived to old age" portrayals, I didn't realize Ian Hart had already played a 50-year-old Lennon in 2013 in the Playhouse Presents television production Snodgrass. (Apparently, in that story, Lennon is bitter about having quit the band just before they could have been big.) Stumbled on it while reading up on The Hours and Times (the first of three instances where Hart's played Lennon in a film or television program).

Regardless, the whole concept of Yesterday seemed thoroughly stupid and the bits I was curious about (all on YouTube) didn't suggest it was worth seeing in its entirety.

[furbicide]

Perhaps I'm naive about how these things work, but I'm actually surprised that trailers are still being released that feature footage excised from final cuts in this day and age. Is it likely that they are put together so far in advance that there's genuine uncertainty about what will be in the finished product? Or is it more likely that, in these cases, the trailer editors already know it's deleted/alternative footage and decide to use it anyway?

[knives]

A little of column a and column b. Trailer companies are often granted access to deleted materials, but also final cuts are usually not achieved until well after a marketing campaign has begun.

[thirtyframesasecond]

SpoilerShow

Speaking of "what if Lennon lived to old age" portrayals, I didn't realize Ian Hart had already played a 50-year-old Lennon in 2013 in the Playhouse Presents television production Snodgrass. (Apparently, in that story, Lennon is bitter about having quit the band just before they could have been big.) Stumbled on it while reading up on The Hours and Times (the first of three instances where Hart's played Lennon in a film or television program).

Regardless, the whole concept of Yesterday seemed thoroughly stupid and the bits I was curious about (all on YouTube) didn't suggest it was worth seeing in its entirety.

The interesting part of Yesterday was mentioned a few pages back, I think, which is where a fairly cynical screenplay by another writer was given the Richard Curtis treatment, and the original would've made for a more interesting film.