The heirs owning the legal rights to the deceased author’s “Top Gun” article in the now-defunct California Magazine sued Paramount Pictures for not obtaining the copyright to the new blockbuster hit movie.
The author of the series, Ehud Yonay, wrote the original article “Top Gun,” which was published in 1983.
At the time, Paramount Pictures licensed the Top Gun stories that led to the original 1986 blockbuster hit movie that has already brought in $357.7 million, including box office sales plus videotapes, etc.
The new “Top Gun: Maverick” movie is a sequel to the original film and is now playing in cinemas across the country and around the globe. The sequel currently has about $1.2 billion in box office sales worldwide. In the US alone, the ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ movie has brought in $605.5 million.
It is now officially the largest earner among all Paramount Pictures films.
Last week, the late author’s widow Shosh Yonay and her son Yuval Yonay sued Paramount Pictures, alleging Paramount Pictures did not secure the license from the estate.
In court documents, the Yonays allege that Paramount Pictures did not buy the license before January 2020, even after they had received a termination notice in 2018 warning them about the pending due date.
In copyright law, as long as rights accrued after 1977, authors or their heirs have the legal right to reclaim the copyrights for the author’s works thirty-five years after transferring those rights for publication.
The Yonays claim Paramount Pictures ignored the legal warning letter and established copyright laws in place for all “Top Gun” projects, which were triggered in January 2020, reverting those rights to the heirs.
The film was released on May 27, 2022, well after the January 2020 date when the rights were reverted to the heirs.
The Yonays sent a cease-and-desist letter to Paramount Pictures on May 11, 2022, notifying them again that they did not have the rights to “Top Gun” anymore.
The studio has not officially stated when the film was completed, which may be critical if the lawsuit goes to court, since the rights reverted to the heirs in January 2020.
In the lawsuit, the Yonays claim that the sequel was not completed in production in 2019 but in May 2021, well after the January 2020 deadline Paramount Pictures missed.
The lawsuit requests Paramount Pictures state that the new film, “Top Gun: Maverick” is derivative of the author’s 1983 article, just as it had been for the first “Top Gun” movie.
Paramount Pictures released a statement about the lawsuit, saying “These claims are without merit, and we will defend ourselves vigorously.”
The “Top Gun” series is the leading box-office revenue generator for the production company, beating out such huge hits as “A Quiet Place” and many others.
Paramount Pictures will not be allowed to produce any future “Top Gun” films if they lose the lawsuit.
The only way the studio can win the lawsuit would be to prove that the new films are no longer derivative of the original “Top Gun” article. However, numerous characters in the sequel appear prominently in both films, such as the lead character played by Tom Cruise.
The studio does indeed claim that the new film is not derivative of the original “Top Gun” article. Paramount Pictures also denies any copyright infringement, saying the new “Top Gun: Maverick” was finished before the copyright was reverted in 2020.
The Yonays seek unspecified damages from Paramount Pictures for the “Top Gun” sequel, including a percentage of the box office numbers that are still growing over the $1.2. billion number. They also seek to block Paramount Pictures from distributing the movie and creating new sequels.
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