If you saw Sylvester Stallone's meat-grinder action throwback 'The Expendables' and thought it seemed familiar, that's probably because you've seen other Stallone action movies over the last thirty years. Either that, or you wrote an unproduced script called 'The Cordoba Caper,' which Stallone's screenplay for 'The Expendables' apparently borrowed heavily from without credit. At least that's what screenwriter Marcus Webb is alleging in a new lawsuit he filed in New York on Tuesday.

In the court papers, Webb says he filed a copyright claim on 'The Cordoba Caper' in 2006, and between 2006 and 2009, the script (and its short-story component also called 'The Cordoba Caper') was readily available to anyone in Hollywood to read as an example of his work.

"There can be no dispute that Stallone and/or [co-screenwriter David] Callaham had access to and copied protectable elements of the screenplay," according to the lawsuit.

What are those elements? Both 'Caper' and 'The Expendables' apparently begin with an off-shore rescue that has little connection to the main plot, focus on an elite team of "highly-trained mercenaries" tasked with defeating a "rogue army general of a small Latin American country," and feature a villain named "General Garza." 'The Expendables' came out in August of 2010.

Webb is seeking unspecified damages from his lawsuit. Stallone had no comment on the case through his publicist. 'The Expendables 2' hits theaters in 2012.

[via Reuters]

[Photo: Getty]

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