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Adriannnnnnn: Stallone and Co-writer Sued Over “The Expendables”

Published onNov 25, 2011
Adriannnnnnn: Stallone and Co-writer Sued Over “The Expendables”

Drago and the other villains from the Rocky movies have some company now as the enemies of “Rocky” a.k.a. Sylvester Stallone.  A Connecticut screenwriter has sued Sylvester Stallone and his co-writer of the 2010 action film for copyright infringement.  Marcus Webb claims that the screenplay for “The Expendables” is “strikingly similar and in some places identical” to his screenplay for “The Cordoba Caper.”  Mr. Webb claims to have filed the screenplay for the work with the U.S. Copyright and Patent Office in 2006.  According to him, “there can be no dispute that Stallone had access to and copied portions of the screenplay.”  Webb shopped the script around Hollywood between 2006 and 2009 to various producers, but it was ultimately not picked up.

For those unfamiliar with the movie, “The Expendables” is about an elite team of mercenaries that are charged with overthrowing a South American dictator.  Notably, the film starts off with the crew of mercenaries performing a hostage rescue off a foreign coast, the same opening that Mr. Webb’s screenplay had.  In both films, this opening was unrelated to the main plot, which was the mercenary crew’s task of overthrowing General Garza, a South American dictator in both movies.  Mr. Webb noted more than twenty similarities between the two screenplays in his lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court.  Mr. Webb is seeking an injunction against any further action by Sylvester Stallone in the series, such as the sequel that has been planned for 2012, and unspecified damages for the infringement of his copyright on the work.

It is quite ironic that Stallone has been sued for copyright infringement after the other intellectual property issues surrounding the movie.  In August 2011, the studio responsible for making the film decided to dismiss the charges against 23,322 defendants accused of pirating the film.  The studio is planning, however, on re-filing charges against thousands of American defendants for illegally downloading the movie.  Copyright infringement of screenplays has always been around, but has become an increasingly visible problem.  Federal copyright law does not cover a particular idea, but rather a specific expression of the idea.  Therefore, a talent manager could receive a script from a writer, change a few specific things in the script, and then create his or her own copyrightable screenplay and movie, all on the back of another’s hard work.

Given that Mr. Webb has outlined more than 20 similarities between “The Cordoba Caper” and “The Expendables,” it will be interesting to see how the court decides the issue.  As previously mentioned, if there are some differences between the two scripts, then a court might find that there is no copyright infringement.  On the other hand, if the similarities between the two screenplays are sufficiently significant, then the court might find copyright infringement.  Additionally, the court and Mr. Webb could potentially fall back on contract law if their copyright efforts fail.  Depending upon the nature of his relationship with the talent manager, Mr. Webb could pursue a breach of contract claim if his copyright efforts fail.  Either way, I know I for one cannot WAIT for the next Sylvester Stallone movie, even if it does not include an ensemble cast of “elite mercenaries.”

*  Pierce Haar is a second-year law student at Wake Forest University School of Law and a member of the Pro Bono Board, serving as the Special Trips Coordinator.  He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Peace, War, and Defense from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Upon graduation in May 2013, Mr. Haar intends to practice either criminal law or civil litigation.

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