Universal Studios is now saying the movie “Mena” about the life and antics of CIA drug smuggler Barry Seal will be released nationwide in late September but probably not under the original working title.
The movie, directed by Doug Liman, is getting a new title: “American Made.” The project reunites Liman and with lead actor Tom Cruise who worked together on 2014’s Edge of Tomorrow. Cruise portrays Seal in the movie.
Universal says the fall movie corridor is a better scheduled release time for adult dramas. The movie had previously been announced for a January release date this year.
“American Made” stars Cruise as real-life American pilot and hustler Seal, who ran drugs in the 1980s for cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar and was recruited by the CIA to run one of the biggest covert operations in history.
The move is set in the 1980’s at the end of the George H. W. Bush administration and into Bill Clinton’s first term as President.
At one point, the tiny Mena airport was a hotbed of activity for Seal and thought to be the headquarters for what was an international drug ring that some say was designed as a CIA-fronted enterprise to fund covert activities around the world.
Conspiracy theorists and investigative reporters have long sought to link the drug running out of Mena to nefarious activities surrounding the CIA and them to the Medellin drug cartel and corruption at the highest levels of government.
After Seal was arrested in 1985 on related charges he was sentenced to work in public service at the Salvation Army facility on Airline Highway/US 61 in Baton Rouge, as a modification by the judge to Seal’s original plea bargain.
On Feb. 19, 1986, Seal was shot to death in front of the site. Seal’s shooting abruptly brought the DEA’s investigation to an end. Colombian assassins sent by the Medellín Cartel were apprehended while trying to leave Louisiana soon after Seal’s murder.
Authorities thus concluded Seal’s murderers were hired by Ochoa. The killers were indicted by a state grand jury on March 27, 1986.
In May 1987, Luis Carlos Quinter-Cruz, Miguel Velez, and Bernardo Antonio Vasquez were convicted of first degree murder in Seal’s death, and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
