Paramount Pictures Gets Hit With Lawsuit Over “Top Gun: Maverick”

Paramount Pictures was served with a lawsuit Monday over the rights to Top Gun.  The complaint was filed by Shosh and Yuval Yonay, heirs to Ehud Yonay, the author of the 1983 California magazine story entitled “Top Guns” that the original movie was based on. They say the studio knew it didn’t have the rights to the sequel but went ahead with shooting and releasing it anyway.

There is a provision in copyright law which allows authors take back the rights to their works after waiting a period of time, typically 35 years. This has been problematic for studios that face that prospect of losing franchise rights to many iconic works from the 1980s. The Yonays claim that the rights to the story reverted back to them in January 2020 after sending Paramount a notice of termination but that the studio “deliberately ignored this, thumbing its nose at the statute.” They are looking to block the studio from further exploiting Top Gun: Maverick.