A copyright lawsuit against Paramount over “Top Gun: Maverick” will continue after a judge denied the company’s motion to dismiss it.
The widow and son of author Ehud Yonay filed the case in June, arguing that the studio had never bothered to renew the rights to the article about the Navy Fighter Weapons School, which ran in California magazine.
In California magazine’s May 1983 edition, Yonay penned “Top Guns,” about the pilots and program “located in a second-floor cubby of offices at the east end of Hangar One at Miramar.”
The piece was optioned very quickly, made into the now classic Reagan Era pic and Yonay was in fact cited in the credits of the first Top Gun.
Paramount countered that it did not need the rights, because the sequel bore little resemblance to the article and because facts about the school are not subject to copyright protection.
Yonay died in 2012. In 2018, his widow, Shosh Yonay, and son, Yuval Yonay, exercised their right to terminate the copyright assignment after 35 years.
“Defendant’s primary argument in its Motion to Dismiss is that Plaintiffs have not sufficiently pled in their FAC that the Article and the Sequel are ‘substantially similar,’” said U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson in a court order released today. “The Court disagrees.”
“For all of the foregoing reasons, the Court denies the Motion to Dismiss,” the dense order added (read it here). “The Court concludes that the FAC contains sufficient well-pleaded facts to state viable claims for copyright infringement, breach of contract, and declaratory relief.”
“While the Court declined to dismiss the case at this very early stage in the proceedings, we will continue to vigorously defend this lawsuit and are confident that discovery will confirm that the claims have no merit,” a Paramount Pictures spokesperson said.
Marc Toberoff, the plaintiffs’ attorney, responded to the ruling with a “Top Gun” quote: “Fight’s on.”
Hitting the federal court docket just after the $1.5 billion box office scoring Maverick was released in late May, the suit seeks hefty but unspecified financial compensation. The Yonays also want an injunction to stop screenings and distribution of the film.
