Paramount Sued Over Copyright Breach

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Paramount Sued Over Copyright Breach
08 Jun 2022
6 min read

News Synopsis

The family of the Israeli writer whose article inspired Tom Cruise's 1986 film Top Gun is suing film studio Paramount Pictures for copyright infringement in the sequel. They claim that when the sequel Top Gun: Maverick was released last month, the studio did not have the rights to Ehud Yonay's 1983 story "Top Guns."

In its first ten days of release, the film grossed $548 million (£438 million) worldwide. The company claims the claim is "without merit" and has vowed to fight it. Cruise reprises his role as US Navy pilot Pete "Maverick" Mitchell from the original 1986 film in Top Gun: Maverick.

It had the fourth-largest opening weekend of any film in the Covid era, trailing only Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and The Batman. The lawsuit, filed on Monday in federal court in Los Angeles by Ehud's widow and son, Shosh and Yuval Yonay, claims that Paramount failed to reacquire the rights to Ehud's magazine article after it was terminated under the US Copyright Act.

They are suing the film studio for unspecified damages, including profits from Top Gun: Maverick. The Top Gun franchise would not have existed without Ehud's "literary efforts and evocative prose and narrative," according to the lawsuit.

TWN In-Focus