Oil giant BP apparently doesn’t liked to be portrayed the villain, especially when it comes to a Hollywood blockbuster.
The oil company hit back at the movie “Deepwater Horizon,” starring Mark Wahlberg, which opens nationwide in theaters Friday, saying it inaccurately portrays the 2010 oil rig disaster that killed 11 workers and caused the largest oil spill in history.
“The ‘Deepwater Horizon’ movie is Hollywood’s take on a tragic and complex accident,” Geoff Morrell, the oil company’s vice president for communications, said Friday. “It is not an accurate portrayal of the events that led to the accident, our people or the character of our company.”
The movie has received critical praise for exposing one of the causes of the 2010 incident, BP’s greed, according to a New York Times’ review that called it a “true crime story.”
On top of that, an environmental group is circulating a petition to get Wahlberg and the filmmakers to donate some of the movie’s profits to support the continued restoration of the Gulf of Mexico.
“The trailer makes it look like Mark Wahlberg’s character will be a hero amidst the tragedy that caused 11 men to lose their lives,” said Aaron Viles, the senior grassroots organizer for the group Care2 and author of the petition. “But I know from firsthand experience that BP was no hero in the response.
“They lied about how much oil was being released and their response plan was found to be a work of fiction,” Viles said. “They also relied heavily on the use of chemical dispersant to break up their oil.”
