Monday, February 10, 2014

Ron Howard to direct "Mena", a Fact Based Tale about the 80's Drug Trafficking in Mena, Arkansas

Universal Pictures today closed a $1 million spec deal for Mena, a script by Gary Spinelli that has Ron Howard attached to direct. The film will be produced by Doug Davison with Imagine’s Brian Grazer, and with Kim Roth exec producing. This was a hot script auction, with Sony also bidding. Universal took it off the table with a $1 million offer, plus a blind script commitment in a deal brokered by Gersh.

Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA

Deadline says the flick, based on a script by Gary Spinelli, will tell of “Barry Seal, a portly pilot who, in the 1980s, was a 300-pound gun runner, and drug trafficker who transported contraband for the CIA and the Medellin cartel. He was eventually shot to death by the latter in Baton Rouge. The title refers to Mena, Arkansas, where a lot of the illegal activity took place, under the noses of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton."

The following documentaries: The Mena Connection, The Clinton Chronicles and Bill Clinton Murders are also based on the same story.