Tom Cruise's upcoming drug thriller "American Made" is facing trouble a year before its release. The producers behind the movie has been hit with a new wrongful death lawsuit filed on Sept. 14, Wednesday, after a plane used for the movie crashed in September 2015 and killed two people.
The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of the family of Carlos Berl, one of three victims in the crash. The suit claims that safety was compromised because flight operations were "rushed" to save money when the movie fell behind schedule, according to court documents acquired by Entertainment Weekly.
The twin engine plane took off near a filming location on Sept. 11, 2015, and crashed about ten minutes after departure en route to Medellin. Along with Berl, Alan Purwin, a stunt pilot was killed in the accident while Jimmy Lee Garland, the pilot in command, was severely injured.
The lawsuit claims that Berl was still a student pilot on the flight. He was supposed to participate in transporting the aircraft back to the U.S. from Colombia.
It is also being claimed that Berl repeatedly told the involved companies that he had insufficient flight experience and still required flight instruction, but he was "unexpectedly directed" to board the ill-fated aircraft. Another helicopter carrying Cruise had travelled the same way 10 minutes earlier and arrived safely.
"The dangerous flight should have never been permitted to take place," The Wrap quoted the family's attorney Justin Green of Kreindler & Kreindler, LLP as saying. "The film's crew was rushing back to Medellin because they were behind schedule, and as a result, cost two crew members their lives."
The defendants named in the lawsuit are Mena Productions, Cross Creek Pictures, Imagine Entertainment, Vendian Entertainment, Quadrant Pictures, helicopter pilot Frederic North, Garland and his company S&S Aviation, Purwin's company Heliblack, and Kathryn Purwin, the executor of Purwin's estate.
In "American Made," Cruise plays ex-TWA pilot Barry Seal, the American pilot who worked for Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar and later went on to become a spy for the Drug Enforcement Agency. The movie is set to release on Sept. 29, 2017. Watch the teaser below: