Top Gun: Maverick Studio Sued Over Copyright by Family of Writer Whose Story Original Film Is Based On

Scott Garfield/Paramount Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Paramount Pictures is being sued by the family of the writer who penned the original 1983 story that 1986's Top Gun is based on.

Shosh and Yuval Yonay, self-declared "heirs" of aforementioned author Ehu Yonay, accused the studio — in a document filed Monday in Los Angeles federal court — of a "conscious failure to re-acquire the requisite film and ancillary rights to the Yonays' copyrighted Story prior to the completion and release of their derivative 2022 Sequel."

The plaintiffs alleged that Paramount violated the copyright by completing the sequel — Top Gun: Maverick, which was released on May 27 — in May 2021, more than a year after the copyright to the story had "reverted to the Yonays under the Copyright Act" in January 2020.

"Paramount deliberately ignored this, thumbing its nose at the statute," reads the document, which was obtained by PEOPLE on Monday.

The Yonays are seeking unspecified damages, "including pre-judgment interest they sustained and will sustain, and any income, gains, profits, and advantages obtained by Paramount as a result of its wrongful acts alleged" as outlined in the document, as well as "maximum statutory damages recoverable" and their attorneys' fees.

In a statement, Paramount said: "These claims are without merit, and we will defend ourselves vigorously."

Paramount Pictures Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

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RELATED: Tom Cruise Reacts to Top Gun: Maverick's "Historic" Opening Weekend: "Thank You"

Maverick picks up 30 years after Pete "Maverick" Mitchell's (Tom Cruise) graduation from TOPGUN Naval aviation program, when he is called back as an instructor for the elite fliers.

In the 10 days the film has been in theaters, Maverick has grossed over $291 million at the domestic box office and $257 million internationally, for a global total of $548.6 million.

The action flick earned an estimated $124 million at the domestic box office in its first three days alone, becoming Cruise's biggest opening weekend yet, according to Variety. It was also the movie star's first film to debut to more than $100 million.

For Cruise, who also headlines the Mission: Impossible franchise, his highest opening weekend prior to Maverick was War of the Worlds, which took in $64 million upon its debut back in 2005.

RELATED VIDEO: Top Gun: Maverick Stars Tom Cruise, Jon Hamm, Miles Teller and More on Filming the "Love Letter to Aviation"

Maverick director Joe Kosinski recently told Polygon that giving Cruise "an emotional reason to return to" his iconic character more than three decades later "was honestly the element that really grabbed Tom," after an initial hesitance to make another Top Gun film.

"The second thing was, what's Maverick been doing?" added Kosinski, 48. "And this is kind of my own passion, you know, coming through and pitching the Darkstar sequence [in the beginning], just being someone who has always loved airplanes and aerospace and studied aerospace engineering and mechanical engineering and loved The Right Stuff."

"So the idea of finding him as a test pilot on the bleeding edge of what's possible seemed to me like the perfect way to find him, and Tom loved that," the director said.

Top Gun: Maverick is now playing in theaters.