Family Of DEA Informant Sue Universal Over New Tom Cruise Movie Mena
The daughter of Barry Seal, a former CIA-linked pilot-turned-drug smuggler, is suing Universal over their new movie ‘Mena’.
The movie stars Tom Cruise as Seal, who after it was discovered he was flying planes full of cocaine for Pablo Escobar, informed on the drug kingpin’s Medellín Cartel to the DEA.
He was murdered in 1986 by hitmen from the cartel in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and it was claimed that the US government failed to adequately protect him.
His involvement in smuggling was recently brought to the small screen in the Netflix hit series 'Narcos’, in which he was played by Dylan Bruno.
Now his daughter Lisa Seal Frigon has filed a lawsuit in Louisiana against Universal over a reported $350,000 deal made to tell his story as granted by Seal’s third wife.
Lisa Seal Frigon, his daughter from his first marriage, is saying that as the executor of his estate, her consent to sell the rights was required.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the suit adds that the movie’s script 'contains many factual inaccuracies and thus falsely portrays’ Seal and therefore 'diminishes the value of his estate’.
The movie, which was shot scenes in Atlanta earlier this year and in Medellín, Columbia, last month, also stars Sarah Wright and 'Breaking Bad’s Jesse Plemons.
In September, two crew-members on the film, stunt pilot Alan D. Purwin (pictured with Cruise below) and Carlos Berl, were killed in a plane crash near Medellín, after running into bad weather.
The pilot of the small aircraft survived.
“An aircraft carrying crew members crashed while returning to Enrique Olaya Herrera Airport in Medellín following production wrap on the film 'Mena’ resulting in two fatalities,” a spokesperson for Universal said in a statement.
“Further details are not available at this time. On behalf of the production, our hearts and prayers go out to the crew members and their families at this difficult time.”
Image credits: Rex Features/Deadline/Splash
