The Atlanta Journal-Constitution demanded that Clint Eastwood and Warner Bros. add a disclaimer to their movie noting that it includes a dramatized portrayal of a journalist for the newspaper who trades sex for tips.
“We hereby demand that you immediately issue a statement publicly acknowledging that some events were imagined for dramatic purposes and artistic license and dramatization were used in the film’s portrayal of events and characters,” the Monday letter said. “We further demand that you add a prominent disclaimer to the film to that effect.”
The movie, Richard Jewell, is set to be released Friday and depicts journalist Kathy Scruggs having sex with an FBI agent to land a story. The plot of the movie revolves around Jewell, who was an American security guard suspected of participating in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing. He was never charged and was eventually exonerated but not before being put on “trial by media.”
Scruggs died nearly 20 years ago, and the paper said she never had sex with anyone to land a story about the Jewell investigation. Jewell died in 2007 at age 44.
“If they had actually contacted me, it might have ruined their idea of what they wanted the story to be,” Ron Martz, who co-wrote the initial Scruggs story, said in an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It’s obvious to me they did not go to any great lengths to find out what the real characters were like.”
The paper has hired a Hollywood lawyer, Martin Singer, to lead a potential lawsuit against Eastwood and Warner Bros. Singer has been described as “the lawyer celebrities call when their reputations are in danger.”
