“Top Gun: Maverick” copyright lawsuit against studio dismissed

Sydney Bucksbaum
·2 min read
1

Paramount prevails against the heirs of Ehud Yonay, the writer behind the original "Top Guns" article about the US Navy’s Top Gun fighter pilot school.

Maverick has done it again.

Top Gun: Maverick studio Paramount Pictures has gotten the copyright lawsuit against it dismissed, EW has confirmed.

Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures

Ehud Yonay is the late author of a 1983 magazine story Top Guns about the US Navy’s fighter pilot training school, which inspired the first movie starring Tom Cruise. Yonay's heirs Shosh and Yuval Yonay accused the studio of making the 2022 sequel without reacquiring the rights to the original story and sought damages as well as an injunction on the film's $1.4 billion profits.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson dismissed the case after concluding that the plot, theme, setting, and dialogue are "largely dissimilar" from the article, and any factual similarities aren't protected by copyright law.

"We respectfully disagree with the ruling, particularly on summary judgment, and will exercise our right of appeal to the 9th Circuit," copyright attorney Marc Toberoff, who is representing the plaintiffs, tells EW in a statement, adding that they will be seeking appeal. "Paramount's actions speak much louder than its counsel's words. In 1983, soon after Ehud Yonay's cinematic Top Guns story appeared in California Magazine, Paramount literally raced to lock up the story's copyright to the exclusion of other Studios. In the words of Top Gun's producers Simpson/Bruckheimer (in an interview on Top Gun's origin): 'We got to get this. We got to buy this,' 'Get on the phone with California Magazine. We want this right away.' And unsurprisingly Yonay received credit on the resulting derivative film, Top Gun, spawning a lucrative franchise for the studio."

Toberoff continues, "Yet once Yonay's widow and son exercised the rights Congress gave them in the Copyright Act to reclaim the author's captivating story, Paramount hand-waived them away exclaiming 'What copyright?' It's just not a good look."

Paramount previously secured the film rights to Ehud's article when it released the original Top Gun back in 1986. However, after Ehud's death in 2012, his widow and son terminated the company's copyright to the work in 2018. Paramount argued that the family's lawsuit "fails to allege adequately" that Ehud's work "is substantially similar in protectable expression to Paramount Pictures' Top Gun: Maverick."

"To the contrary, any similarity between these vastly different works derives from the fact that Top Gun is an actual naval training facility," the filing read. "Plaintiffs do not have a monopoly over works about Top Gun."

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