Jeffrey Sarver Says 'The Hurt Locker' Was Based on His Iraq Experience: L.A. Judge Says so What

The Hurt Locker

Sgt. Jeffrey S. Sarver claimed in a suit filed against the film's makers just before it won the Academy Award for Best Picture last year that he was the inspiration for the main character -- a bomb-diffusing technician in Iraq.

Unfortunately for Sarver, Jacqueline H. Nguyen, U.S. District Court judge in L.A., said so what. She wrote that the movie was based on ...

... the creativity and skill of the writers, directors, and producers who conceived, wrote, directed, edited, and produced it.

She tossed his suit.

So, good news Hollywood: You no longer have to pay for "rights" to stories in order to make a movie because it's all about the writers' skill and all that directing and stuff.

(And here we were pitching an epic on news blogging).

Sarver said bomb tech William James, played by Jeremy Renner, was based on him and that the Playboy magazine piece by Mark Boal, who was indeed embedded with Sarver's unit in Iraq.

In fact Boal conducted a follow-up interview in the U.S. Sarver said he even came up with the term "hurt locker" to describe a painful event.

Feels like a bum decision to us. Maybe Sarver will appeal.

-With reporting from City News Service. Got news? Email us. Follow us on Twitter, too: @dennisjromero.