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http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/03/hurt.locker.lawsuit/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Long story short, the guy who wrote "The Hurt Locker" pretty much modeled his characters off of the unit he was embedded with. Now the guy who is the main bomb tech is suing.

Frankly, I'm not sure I agree with either party. I know fictional characters are frequently based on real people and they don't have to pay, but I also see how a guy who sees his life on the screen might feel a little entitled.

What do you guys think?

There should be a little compensation to the soldier. Only because the author seemed to have based so much of the screenplay on his actual words, especially the term Hurt Locker.

But this kind of thing happens all the time. Did Cameron Crowe have to pay the band he wrote about as a teen for the film Almost Famous. Or Linklater for writing about my friend "Woody" in Dazed and Confused? No, "Woody" sued and lost. Except he sued for defamation of character, not for the general story itself.

You can't let people sue for being used in movies. A lot of screenwriters draw things from personal experiences. You don't have the rights to everything you do or say in your life!

I trademark everything I do. Every time someone stays in bed until 3, feels regret over their life decisions and then watches porn owes me 5 dollars.

Shit. I owe you like ... 30 dollars for this week so far!

---------- Post added at 07:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:50 PM ----------

And wait ... wouldn't this be grounds for a court-martial or something then? The character in the Hurt Locker went off base and broke into someone's house at one point, didn't he? I don't remember exactly what happened.

This tends to crop up all the time with success franchises. Harry Potter, Twilight, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (well...two of three successful =p). I'm not surprised this is coming up in the news NOW, when the movie is about to win big at the Oscars and getting all this buzz.

Could be true, but I'm gonna guess it's not.

I'd only feel truly sorry for the guy if he intended to tell his story and got beaten to it. Or if the movie was all but a documentary about the dude.

"The screenplay says he is a blonde, blue-eyed trailer trash from Tennessee, but he's blonde, blue-eyed and grew up in a trailer in West Virginia.

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Having a character with blonde hair and blues eyes is hardly proof.

The interactions you have with people are a part of who they are. Even if you touch someone's life in a profound, meaningful way, it's still their life. The screenwriter was writing from his OWN experiences, that these come from the interactions from others doesn't mean they're not still his.

Calleja said:

The interactions you have with people are a part of who they are. Even if you touch someone's life in a profound, meaningful way, it's still their life. The screenwriter was writing from his OWN experiences, that these come from the interactions from others doesn't mean they're not still his.

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Which is really up for the court to decide. If the guy thinks that *his* life experiences were specifically used to make someone else money without his permission, it makes perfect sense that he sue. Now he just has to prove it.

Was there no disclaimer in the film saying that any resemblance to actual persons or events was entirely coincidental?