Sylvestar Stallone sued over Expendables screenplay

Screenwriter Marcus Webb is suing Sylvester Stallone for allegedly ripping of his script and using it as a basis for The Expendables. The obvious joke here is, ‘The Expendables had a script?!’

According to Reuters, Webb filed the suit in Manhattan federal court earlier this week. He claims the screenplay for The Expendables is “strikingly similar and in some places identical” to his script The Cordoba Caper.

Don’t immediately lump this suit in with some of the other crazy ones we’ve reported lately (namely, the women who sued her local cinema for screening a deceptive trailer for Drive, or the guy that claims The Hangover Part II stole his life story). Webb filed The Cordoba Caper to the U.S. Copyright Office in 2006, before circulating it to Hollywood studios.

But Stallone is no screen-writing slouch; his Rocky script was nominated for a Best Writing Oscar back in the day.

Webb is seeking unspecified damages and a court order stopping further infringement by Stallone, as well as studios Millennium/NuImage Films and Lionsgate. It is unknown if this will affect the production or release of Expendables 2.

Discuss: Seriously, The Expendables had a script?! That Mickey Rourke monologue was scripted?!