Court Rules That Movie Studios Can Now Be Sued For False Advertising In Trailers

the avengers running in the trailer for infinity war

Marvel Studios


Movie studios can now be sued for false advertising if they market misleading trailers, according to a recent court ruling.

The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by two Ana de Armas fans earlier this year, who claimed they rented the 2019 film Yesterday because they saw the actress in the trailer but then later discovered her scenes had been cut from the movie.

Universal sought to throw out the lawsuit, arguing that movie trailers are entitled to broad protection under the First Amendment. The studio’s lawyers argued that a trailer is an “artistic, expressive work” that tells a three-minute story conveying the theme of the movie, and should thus be considered “non-commercial” speech.

But Wilson rejected that argument, finding that a trailer is commercial speech and is subject to the California False Adverting Law and the state’s Unfair Competition Law. [via Variety]

According to Variety, the two plaintiffs — Conor Woulfe of Maryland and Peter Michael Rosza of California — each paid $3.99 to rent the film on Amazon Prime and are now seeking at least $5 million in damages “as representatives of a class of movie customers.”

Yesterday, directed by Danny Boyle(Slumdog Millionaire, Steve Jobs) and starring Himesh Patel and Lily James, is a 2019 film that imagines a world where only one man — Patel’s character Jack — seems to remember the existence of The Beatles.

The ruling obviously presents a problem for the comic book movie genre in particular, as the industry will often use vague deception in their trailers in order to throw fans off the scent of the plot, especially in the age of seemingly endless sub-Reddits and Twitter threads. This ruling, however, will now make that task far more complicated.

RELATED: Ana de Armas Says She Was Haunted By Marilyn Monroe’s Ghost After Asking Her Grave For ‘Permission’ To Play Her

Eric Italiano BroBIble avatar
Eric Italiano is a NYC-based writer who spearheads BroBible's Pop Culture and Entertainment content. He covers topics such as Movies, TV, and Video Games, while interviewing actors, directors, and writers.