Paramount Sued Over Rights to Top Gun by Heirs of Writer Who Inspired Movie

Paramount Pictures has been sued for copyright infringement over the rights to Top Gun.

The suit, first reported by Puck News, was filed Monday in California federal court and comes from Shosh and Yuval Yonay, heirs of the writer Ehud Yonay.

Ehud Yonay penned the story “Top Guns,” which was published in the April 1983 issue of California magazine and largely inspired the 1986 film.

While Paramount licensed the magazine article in 1983, the Yonays’ suit claims that the studio had already lost the rights to Top Gun before they released the sequel Top Gun: Maverick in 2022.

The suit cites a provision of copyright law that allows authors or their heirs to reclaim rights to their stories 35 years after the date that the rights were initially transferred.

According to the lawsuit, the Yonays sent Paramount a termination notice regarding their right to recover the copyright to the story on Jan. 23, 2018.

“On January 24, 2020, the copyright to the Story thus reverted to the Yonays under the Copyright Act, but Paramount deliberately ignored this, thumbing its nose at the statute,” the suit added. “This case arises out of Paramount’s 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 suit later argued that “as of January 24, 2020, the Yonays are the sole owners of the U.S. copyright in the Story.”

While Top Gun: Maverick was released this year — earning the record for biggest opening over the Memorial Day holiday weekend — production was completed in 2019 and the film was originally meant to hit theaters in 2021, with the pandemic delaying the premiere.

The Yonays are being represented by Marc Toberoff, who has a history of fighting for creators and their heirs in copyright disputes.

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