'Dazed and Confused' filmmaker sued

SANTA FE, N.M.  — Three former high school classmates of “Dazed and Confused” director Richard Linklater have filed a lawsuit claiming they have suffered embarrassment and ridicule because of characters based on them in the movie.

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The men — Bobby Wooderson, Andy Slater and Richard “Pink” Floyd — say Linklater did not get their permission before creating three characters in the 1993 cult classic sharing their surnames and likenesses.

The suit was filed Thursday in Santa Fe against Universal Studios, which released the film.

The movie follows the drug- and alcohol-fueled hijinks of teenagers on the last day of school in May 1976. The men said the negative characterizations in the film have made their lives miserable and caused their neighbors to think poorly of them.

“We had fun in high school, but there is nothing true about that movie. Yet, I am having to deal with it all the time,” said Floyd, who works at a car dealership in Huntsville, Texas, where the men went to high school.

Ernest Freeman, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, said Slater has also had problems because people make assumptions that he takes illegal drugs.

Slater runs a construction and remodeling company and Wooderson works in the technology sector. Both men also still live in Huntsville.

Linklater’s agent did not immediately return a message Saturday seeking comment.

The suit was filed in New Mexico because it has a longer statute of limitations than other states for claims of defamation and false light, attorneys said.