Less than two months before The Expendables 2 comes out, Sylvester Stallone today scored an action hero legal victory. Judge Jed Rakoff rejected Marcus Webb’s claims that The Expendables was his original idea and Sly stole it. Webb sued Stallone, the retro action flick’s co-author David Callaham, Millennium Films, Nu Image Films and Lionsgate in late October 2011. In his initial suit, Webb said he circulated a script several years ago among studios about “elite highly trained mercenaries” recruited to defeat a dictator. Webb alleged that the screenplay for The Expendables is “strikingly similar and in some places identical” to his The Cordoba Caper. Webb claimed that Stallone, who directed, co-wrote and starred in The Expendables, and his team must have seen his script because they were so alike. The Rocky star’s lawyers said that was unlikely especially being that one was an action movie and Webb’s was more of a caper flick. The lawyers also pointed out that Callaham had already written several drafts of what was to become 2010’s The Expendables before Webb’s script was even out there. The judge, who said a more formal order would be forthcoming, obviously agreed. The Expendables 2 comes out on August 17, 2012.

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