You may soon be able to sue movie studios over misleading trailers

Studios such as Marvel and others could be sued for misleading trailers, if a case currently making its way through the United States District Court for the Central District of California continues down the path it’s on.

Here’s what happened: a couple of fans of actor Ana de Armas rented the movie Yesterday on Amazon Prime Video, assuming that de Armas would show up based on her presence in a trailer.

But here’s the thing: de Armas’ scene, which involves her character going on The Late Late Show with James Corden, didn’t appear in the final movie. The fans felt swindled and sued. They are seeking at least $5 million as representatives of a class of movie customers, according to Variety.

Universal, the studio behind Yesterday, filed a motion to have the case tossed out of court, arguing that trailers were protected as pieces of “artistic, expressive work” and considered “non-commercial” speech. But U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson was having none of that, writing:

"Universal is correct that trailers involve some creativity and editorial discretion, but this creativity does not outweigh the commercial nature of a trailer. At its core, a trailer is an advertisement designed to sell a movie by providing consumers with a preview of the movie."

Essentially, Wilson said that if someone spends money on a movie based on a misleading trailer and then was disappointed when the thing they were misled to believe was in the movie wasn’t actually in the movie, they could theoretically have a legitimate reason to sue, even though trailers have some artistic components to them. Although he was careful to clarify that this only applied to trailers where a “significant portion” of “reasonable consumers” could be misled.

Attention, Marvel and other studios: Don’t edit your movie trailers too much!

This case is still working its way through the court system. We don’t know what the ultimate outcome will be. But if a high court rules that it’s legal to sue movie studios for misleading trailers, where might that leave the industry?

Trailers are often misleading, whether it’s to get people in the theater or as a means to preserve surprise and prevent the leaking of story details. I wouldn’t say this is a malicious practice, but rather just a way for studios like Marvel to get fans excited and hyped for the movie. We’ve seen it time and time again, especially within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If you’ve ever been to San Diego Comic-Con, where these trailers are often shown for the first time, you know what it feels like to scream with utter joy alongside 6,000 fans.

The omissions can be part of the fun. Take what happened with an early trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home. When Marvel dropped that trailer, fans immediately noticed a shot where the Lizard seemed to get punched by nothing. This added fuel to the fire surrounding the potential returns of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. Depending on how the Yesterday case goes, might a trailer like that expose Marvel Studios to legal liability? Maybe this could mean more accurate trailers and less room for speculation and theories in the future.

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h/t The Direct