The chief executive from the film studio behind a movie about the Chappaquiddick scandal has said he was pressured to dump the project.

Byron Allen, the CEO of Entertainment Studios and the executive producer of Chappaquiddick, says ‘some very powerful people…tried to put pressure’ on him ‘not to release this movie.’

‘They went out of their way to try and influence me in a negative way,’ he told Variety.

‘I made it very clear that I’m not about the right, I’m not about the left.

‘I’m about the truth.’

Chappaquiddick refers to the island next to Martha’s Vineyard which was the site of a 1969 car accident that killed a female companion of then-Senator Ted Kennedy.

Byron Allen (second from right), the executive producer of Chappaquiddick, says ‘some very powerful people…tried to put pressure’ on him ‘not to release this movie.’ The film's stars, Jason Clarke (far left), Kate Mara (second from left) and Ed Helms (far right), are seen above

Late at night on July 18, 1969, Kennedy drove his car off a bridge with Mary Jo Kopechne, an aide to Robert Kennedy, in the passenger seat.

Kopechne, 28, who was trapped inside the car as it sank in the water, drowned while Kennedy swam to safety.

Kennedy reported the accident the following day after Kopechne’s body was recovered.

He denied he was drunk at the time of the crash. Kennedy, who was married, also denied he was having an affair with Kopechne.

The then-senator pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of a crash causing personal injury. He received a suspended sentence of two months in jail.

Chappaquiddick likely ruined any chance Kennedy had of being elected president.

The film, starring Kate Mara as Kopechne, was screened in Beverly Hills this week before its nationwide release on Friday.

Frogmen dive into the water as they try to raise the car belonging to Senator Edward Kennedy in which he was seriously injured and his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne was killed. The above photo is from July 19, 1969

Kennedy (right) swam to safety and survived while Kopechne (left) drowned in his car as it sank

Kennedy and his then-wife, Joan, are seen on their way to Kopechne's funeral

Kennedy arrives to the Dukes County Courthouse in Edgartown, Massachusetts, on July 25, 1969, after pleading guilty to leaving the scene of a fatal auto accident. Chappaquiddick destroyed Kennedy's chances of ever being elected president

Jason Clarke, the Australian actor, portrays the late Massachusetts senator who died of brain cancer in 2009.

Allen says that the film is a tribute to Kopechne, a long-forgotten victim who is due to receive her fair share of justice.

‘[She is] one of the original #MeToo victims,’ he said.

Mara said she was worried how Kopechne's family would react to her portrayal.

The House of Cards star wanted ‘to make sure we show her in a way that is respectable and that honors her in some small way.’

Jason Clarke, the Australian actor, portrays the late Massachusetts senator who died of brain cancer in 2009

Mara, the star of House of Cards, says she wanted to pay tribute to Kopechne through her portrayal of her

The director of the film, John Curran, says that the movie is faithful to the facts while taking Kennedy’s version of events into account.

Clarke, who prepared for the role by jumping into the same waters off Cape Cod where the accident took place, told Variety he was apprehensive about the project.

‘I was nervous on a “can I do it” level and I guess on a “should we do it” [level],’ he said.

‘We’re not making propaganda. Here is this amazing, incredible, traumatic event, which I think has had a massive impact, and still does, and effects the world we’re in now–20th century American history.’

Clarke said the indie film, which is in limited release on Friday, doesn't try to sensationalize the accident.

'IT HAUNTS ME EVERY DAY': TED KENNEDY EXPRESSED REMORSE OVER CHAPPAQUIDDICK 'That night on Chappaquiddick Island ended in a horrible tragedy that haunts me every day of my life,' Kennedy wrote in a memoir, True Compass. Kennedy is seen above on Capitol Hill in September 2007 Within a month of his death in August 2009, Senator Edward M. Kennedy said in a posthumously released memoir that he was not romantically involved with young Mary Jo Kopechne and that he never escaped the despair he felt after she died in the 1969 car crash that has been seared into the national consciousness as 'Chappaquiddick.' He acknowledged that he enjoyed women and drink - sometimes too much so - but said reports of wild Kennedy excesses were exaggerated. Yet it was the specter of Chappaquiddick that Edward Kennedy, the youngest brother, never could shake. 'That night on Chappaquiddick Island ended in a horrible tragedy that haunts me every day of my life,' Kennedy wrote in a memoir, True Compass. The Massachusetts senator died on August 25, 2009 at age 77 following a yearlong battle with brain cancer. Kennedy said his Catholic faith helped sustain him as he wrestled with guilt over the events of July 18, 1969, when he drove a car off a bridge into a pond on the tiny island. In Kennedy's 2009 memoir, he addresses the Chappaquiddick incident His own anguish, he said, paled in comparison with the suffering endured by Kopechne's family. 'Atonement is a process that never ends,' he wrote. In the book, Kennedy said his actions on Chappaquiddick on July 18, 1969, were 'inexcusable.' He said he was afraid and 'made terrible decisions' and had to live with the guilt for more than four decades. Kennedy drove off a bridge into a pond. He swam to safety, leaving Kopechne in the car. Kopechne, 28, a former worker with Robert Kennedy's campaign, was found dead in the submerged car's back seat 10 hours later. Kennedy, then 37, pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and got a suspended sentence and probation. He wrote that he had no romantic relationship with Kopechne, and he hardly knew her. He said they were both getting emotional about his brother's death and decided to leave the party that was hosted by Robert Kennedy's former staffers. He made similar statements in the days following the crash Source: Associated Press Advertisement

He said the film sticks ‘to the facts as much as we could and to play it out without scandalizing, without going to the tabloid of it.’

‘This man committed this act and he worked his way out of it with help and with his own moral journey to the other side, where he then became one of the longest-serving senators in history.

‘I don't think - partisanship aside - you can't take away from what he did.’

The tragedy is believed to have sabotaged any chance of Kennedy one day winning the presidency.

Chappaquiddick was another painful chapter in the Kennedy legacy. A year after Ted (far right) was elected to the Senate, his brother, President John Kennedy, was assassinated. Five years later, another brother, Robert, was shot dead while campaigning

After Richard Nixon won the White House in 1968, it was widely assumed that Ted Kennedy, who had been in the Senate since 1962, would become the Democratic Party's nominee who would challenge the Republican incumbent four years later.

Chappaquiddick was one of many painful chapters in the Kennedy legacy.

A year after Ted Kennedy was elected to the Senate, his brother, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated.

Five years later, another brother, Robert Kennedy, was gunned down while campaigning for the Democratic nomination.

Before the film's release, there is already criticism from those close to the Kennedy clan.

Bob Shrum, a legislative aid to Ted Kennedy, said the film does a 'disservice' to the late senator as well as to Kopechne.

'As Senator Kennedy wrote in his memoir, he was at the wheel and responsible for the accident that resulted in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, and he carried the burden of that tragic accident every day of his life,' Shrum told PEOPLE.

'He also understood that his pain was nothing compared to that of an innocent young woman who lost her life and her family.

'There have been more than 20 books and countless articles written about the accident at Chappaquiddick, some attempting to find the truth and others trafficking in conspiracy theories.

RFK'S 'BOILER ROOM GIRL' WAS MORE THAN JUST TEDDY'S RUMORED BLOND LOVER Before she met Ted Kennedy, Mary Jo Kopechne worked as an aide and speechwriter for his brother, Robert Kennedy (seen left with Kopechne in this undated file photo) Mary Jo Kopechne will forever be remembered as the young woman who drowned after Senator Ted Kennedy crashed his car into a pond on Chappaquiddick Island. But few know that she was a woman with her own political ambitions. The daughter of working class parents from Pennsylvania, Kopechne was an educated woman who became politically active during the Civil Rights Movement. A member of the Democratic Party, she moved to Montgomery, Alabama, where she spent a year at the Mission of St. Jude. In 1963, she relocated to Washington, DC, where she worked as a secretary for Florida Senator George Smathers. After Robert Kennedy was elected senator from New York in 1964, she joined his secretarial staff. She remained loyal to RFK, helping him write speeches against the Vietnam War. When he announced he would seek the Democratic Party's nomination for the presidency, Kopechne became one of the so-called 'Boiler Room Girls.' This was the nickname given to six women who worked in a small, stuffy, humid room in Kennedy's campaign headquarters in Washington, DC. On June 5, 1968, RFK was assassinated during a campaign stop in Los Angeles. The assassination was a traumatic event for Kopechne, who later said she could not return to work on Capitol Hill afterward. A year after the assassination, she and the other five 'Boiler Room Girls' as well as other staffers for RFK gathered for a reunion on Chappadquiddick Island. It was there that she met Ted Kennedy. Kopechne was described as a devout Roman Catholic with a 'convent school' demeanor, which makes people who knew her doubt rumors of an affair with either Kennedy. But it is still unclear why she agreed to allow Ted Kennedy to drive her home the night she died, according to Bustle. Advertisement

'This movie pretends to do the former; in reality, it does the latter, which does a disservice both to the victim and the truth.'

But the film's director, John Curran, says the movie tries to delve further into a story where there's more to learn.

'Only Ted and Mary Jo know what happened and they’re dead,' Curran told the Boston Herald.

The director said that in the hours after the accident, spin doctors and crisis managers were called to assist then-Senator Kennedy, who seemed more intent on protecting his political prospects than informing the authorities of what happened.

'The advisers that descended on Hyannisport included Robert McNamara and Ted Sorensen, the heavy-hitters in the Kennedy business, to protect his future and their legacies,' Curran said.

'They were clearly there to fix this, not tell the police the truth.'

Nonetheless, Curran said that the film takes a sympathetic view of Kennedy, particularly in light of his traumatic past and his fragile state of mind at the time of the crash.

'By all accounts Ted was not a happy-go-lucky guy at that point, suffering with bouts of depression and probably drinking too much,' the director said.

'What really fascinated me with this story is beyond this story.

'We knew how large the Kennedys loom for our generation.

'Teddy in 1969, being 37, knew the whole country is waiting for him to run.

'He’s the de facto father to Bobby’s kids and his father is incapacitated by a stroke.

'And he’s an emotional wreck.

'The context is incredible. It’s not to create sympathy for Ted, it’s to understand a human being.

'One of the biggest reasons I had making this is to those who have blind spots specifically at Donald Trump.

'To ignore the best of Teddy Kennedy and just focus on Chappaquiddick is to ignore the ongoing criminal investigation of Trump.'