Oscar-winning fillmmaker Oliver Stone has denied the Daily Mail report that affirms he planned a blockbuster film starring U.S. actor Sean Penn as the Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
“As the Daily Mail would know had it contacted me, the story is unfounded,” Stone said to the Hollywood Reporter.
The British newspaper cited claims from the “TV documentary El Chapo and Sean Penn: Bungle in the Jungle” premiered in the cable network Reelz Channel on Thursday night.
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The film claims Stone orchestrated Penn’s controversial meeting with the Sinaloa Cartel leader, which Mexican authorities said led to his arrest in January. It also alleges that Stone was willing to pay US$6 million for the rights to the story.
Meanwhile, Sean Penn, who wrote about his encounter with the drug lord in an article for Rolling Stone, has repeatedly said he met Guzman as a journalist and had no intention of pursuing a film featuring him as El Chapo.
That meeting is said to have been arranged by Mexican actor Kate del Castillo who was also interested in producing a biopic on Guzman.
The documentary also says Penn took no notes during the seven-hour interview with Guzman and that he was meeting with El Chapo to study his mannerisms ahead of portraying him in the planned film.