Sylvester Stallone is being sued for stealing the story line for “The Expandables” from Connecticut screenwriter, Marcus Webb. Yep, apparently the Stallone action flick had a plot line to steal. Webb claims that “The Expendables” lifted several scenes from a movie he wrote called “The Cordoba Caper.”
In a lawsuit filed today, Webb says that Stallone’s and co-writer David Callaham’s script was “strikingly similar and in some places identical” to the screenplay he finished and copyrighted in 2006.
Reuters reports that Webb shopped his screenplay around to several studios between 2006 and 2009, and that the screenplay was “widely available” to potential buyers in the movie industry.
Do you think Stallone saw Webb’s screenplay?
The lawsuit reads:
“There can be no dispute that Stallone and/or Callaham had access to and copied protectable elements of the screenplay.”
Webb cites several examples where the two scripts are similar in his lawsuit, including the opening scene which involves “a hostage rescue at sea, off a foreign coast, which has nothing to do with the main plot.” The main villain in both movies, according Reuters, is General Garza, “a military dictator with a notorious human rights record.”
“The Expendables,” which was produced by Millennium and Nu Image and distributed by Lions Gate, was released worldwide on August 13, 2010. The movie featured an all-star action cast, including Jet Li, Jason Statham, and Dolph Lundgren, as well as a cameo from Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Webb says that he is owed earnings from “The Expendables,” which made $274.5 million worldwide.
Do you think Stallone stole the plot for “The Expendables” from Marcus Webb?