Family of murdered drug smuggler sue Universal over Tom Cruise film Mena

Family members of a former drug runner turned DEA informant who was murdered by hitmen working for Colombia’s Medellín cartel are suing Universal Studios over a forthcoming film, which will star Tom Cruise in the lead role, according to the Louisiana Advocate.

Cruise will play Louisiana-born smuggler Adler B Seal, known as Barry, in the biopic Mena, set in the 1980s and directed by Doug Liman, who also directed the star in Edge of Tomorrow.

Seal was a Medellín pilot who operated out of Mena, Arkansas, between 1976 and 1984, transporting cannabis, cocaine and later quaaludes from South America to the US. He was arrested in 1984 and began working for the US Drug Enforcement Administration to avoid jail time. Seal was shot dead in 1986 at a safe house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, by Colombian hitmen working for the cartel.

According to Seal’s daughter Lisa Seal Frigon, Universal Studios signed a $350,000 “life rights” deal with the incorrect family members before starting production. Frigon has filed a lawsuit in Baton Rouge demanding an injunction on the film’s planned 2017 release, and claims in her suit that she is the legal executor of Seal’s estate as a daughter from his first marriage. Frigon says Universal signed a deal with her father’s third wife, Debbie Seal, and three children from that marriage, instead, and that no money from that contract has found its way to Seal’s estate.

The suit also claims the film’s screenplay by Gary Spinelli, which was bought by Universal last year following a bidding war, “contains many factual inaccuracies and thus falsely portrays” Seal and “diminishes the value of his estate”. Among the alleged inaccuracies are the suggestion in the script that Seal fathered three children, rather than five, and that he was an alcoholic and a reckless pilot.

Debbie Seal and her three children, Aaron, Dean and Christina, are also named in the suit. Universal has not yet commented on the legal action.

Last month, members of the film’s crew died in a plane crash in the Colombian Andes. Los Angeles-based film pilot Alan Purwin and Colombian Carlos Berl were killed, and Georgia pilot Jimmy Lee Garland was seriously injured.

Mena will also star Brian Dennehy as Bill Clinton, Jesse Plemons, Sarah Wright, Jayma Mays and Lola Kirke.