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Sylvester Stallone Facing A Tough Legal Battle

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 05:31 PST, Jul 3, 2016

Sylvester Stallone, one of Hollywood’s most celebrated actors, is at loggerheads with a New York-based personal trainer who has sued the Hollywood heavyweight for purportedly stealing his concept to produce Strong, an NBC show which features male personal trainers helping female trainees to compete in a physical challenge. The premise of the show is that the contestant who manages to build the best physique and muscle tone takes home the prize.

According to the Daily Mail, Robert Fletcher, the disgruntled personal trainer, had envisaged a similar show which he imagined would be called “America’s Next Great Trainer,” back in 2014.

Fletcher had tried to sell his concept to several Hollywood producers, including Sylvester Stallone. In fact, Robert had sent the required materials to Stallone’s publicist and agents at William Morris Endeavor when he was marketing his concept. The $7 million lawsuit has been filed against the Rocky star, NBA, and the producers of Strong. Robert has also sued Todd Durkin, who features on the weight loss series as a personal trainer. Fletcher claims to have shared his concept with Todd Durkin, who had signed a confidentiality agreement with him in 2014. Fletcher claims that he had plans to have Todd Durkin as the lead trainer on his show, as Todd is one of California’s key celebrity trainers.

In 2015, Todd stopped communicating with Fletcher altogether and later resurfaced in Stallone’s Strong. The lawsuit says that it is no mere coincidence to see Sylvester Stallone producing the show 2 years after Fletcher had pitched his idea. It seems that Sylvester Stallone, who portrayed the fictional Rocky Balboa, will have a lot to explain in the upcoming legal matter.

News of the lawsuit might dampen the spirits of Sylvester Stallone’s die-hard fans, who are waiting endlessly to see the legend return back to the silver screen as the iconic Rambo in yet another sequel.

Recently there were rumors about the return of Stallone in Rambo 5. The rumors seemed to begin when Stallone posted a picture of Bernie Sanders to pledge his support for the Democrat in the upcoming Presidential elections. The photo’s caption that read “Rambo 5, definitely a different concept” had fans talking about the possibility of Stallone reincarnating Rambo in the much-anticipated sequel.

While Sylvester Stallone has inexplicably deleted the Instagram post, it originally featured the following image with the Rambo 5 caption.

According to Yibada, Sylvester Stallone had expressed his willingness to portray Rambo one last time.

However, the 69-year-old actor is well aware of his physical limitations which may impact his ability to do justice to the role. And even though he may feel that he is too old to reprise his role of John Rambo, Sylvester Stallone is yet to shed his macho image. The heavyweight actor is all set to feature in the upcoming Expendables 4 which will hit theaters in 2017. This will be Stallone’s first live-action film since the release of Ryan Coogler’s Creed, in which he delivered an Oscar-nominated performance.

Sylvester Stallone is still being regarded as a role model by many actors around the world who aspire to build muscles like the Rocky star. According to Catch News, Indian macho superstar Salman Khan was compared with Sylvester Stallone during the filming of an upcoming Bollywood movie.

In fact, the Mixed Martial Arts trainers who trained the 50-year-old Salman had strived to help the actor to build a physique even better than Stallone’s. This goes to show that Sylvester Stallone’s macho image is still considered as a benchmark for wannabe bodybuilders.

Moreover, Stallone is still considered one of Hollywood’s most talented actors, with filmmakers all but lining up to work with him. Sylvester Stallone will be seen working on several projects in the near future which includes Omerta, a television adaptation of Mario Puzo’s popular novel. AV Club reports that director Jim Mickle will be directing Stallone in an as-yet-untitled thriller which will show the actor portraying an ex-convict who is determined to seek vengeance at all costs.

[Photo by STRF/STAR MAX/IPx]

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