According to deadline.com Universal Pictures over the weekend snatched up the hot spec MENA, penned by Gary Spinelli. Reportedly coming in and out bidding Sony, the deal is said to be in the $1 million dollar range.  The film will be produced by Brian Grazer, Kim Roth, and Doug Davison. Ron Howard is already attached to direct and that probably didn’t hurt the deal either.  The deal is rumored to also include a blind script commitment and was negotiated by the Gersh agency. Spinelli is a relative unknown with his only previous credit being for STASH HOUSE (2012), also a drug themed story and directed by Eduardo Rodriguez.

The story centers on Barry Seal who was an aircraft pilot turned drug smuggler in the 1980s after he lost his job at TWA. The 300 pound Seal was a gregarious man who flew drugs across the border for the Medellín Cartel and after being investigated worked as a double agent for the Central Intelligence Agency.  Eventually he would be found out and Colombian assassins sent by the Medellín Cartel would murder Seal in 1986.

(Source)