The Detroit News | A U.S. Army explosives expert says his identity and personal exploits were stolen by the makers of the Academy Award-nominated movie “The Hurt Locker.” In the lawsuit, Master Sgt. Jeffrey Sarver and his lawyer state that the screenplay’s author, Mark Boal, based “The Hurt Locker” on a 2004 story Boal wrote for Playboy about Sarver and his unit in Iraq. The Playboy story, Sarver claims, contained factual errors and portrayed him in a negative light.
Get the full story: detnews.com.
Look at who benefits the most from such a lawsuit. The plaintiff would only get a “token” settlement while the law firm and Mr. Fieger gets a TON of free publicity – just before Oscar night – win or lose! The publicity must be worth at least a few million dollars. IMO, this poor guy is just being used by this law firm for publicity purposes. If the lawsuit fails, he will likely get stuck with the bill (since they are suing for attorneys fees as well).
If he had such a problem with the article he participated in and Boal’s screenplay why did he wait until it was successful and up for an Oscar to file his lawsuit? Why didn’t he file suit when it was a fledgling independent picture about to be released by a studio?
Simple answer…attorneys always go for deep pockets, and as a “yet to be successful” independent film, those pockets weren’t deep enough. Now they are. Sad situation, isn’t it?
I work in the entertainment industry so I can give a little insight on this. For every movie released, there is someone out there that claims the movie was based on their life and they should receive compensation. The reason this lawsuit gets attention is due to “Hurt Locker” being an Oscar nominated movie.