That's a fair point, and one that shouldn't be undersold. But, Top Gun producers never claimed that Cruise was an "amazing" aviator, or that Jamie Foxx was a virtuoso cello player, or that King Kong was a crazy-talented ape that worked for bananas.
In the run-up to awards season, and epecially the Oscars, there was a concerted PR campaign that claimed Portman did almost all her own dancing. It seems that was a lie.
Surprise is there wasn’t a non-disclosure contract with damages if this happened.
But... it could be a publicity stunt to renew interest in the film prior to DVD.
Yes, but not an unprecedented one. There was some kind of stink that Jennifer Beals didn't do her own dancing in Flashdance either. The ballerina's "people" should have made her aware that something like that would happen. I am sure that something like that really is hard to take when you did all the real dancing in a movie, and it was probably quite difficult, with all the takes, etc. But that is the nature of films. Stuntmen have died for a $10,000 gig, while the star made millions and went on to bed the leading lady. It's just the way things are and she should have definitely studied the precedent cases.
“n the run-up to awards season, and epecially the Oscars, there was a concerted PR campaign that claimed Portman did almost all her own dancing. It seems that was a lie”
They did; they spent ad after ad and article after article mentioning Portman’s past in classic dance.