Top Gun: Maverick movie poster. (Image: Supplied) US District Judge Percy Anderson in Los Angeles allowed the lawsuit to move forward in a ruling on Thursday, rejecting Paramount’s claim that the plaintiff hasn’t shown the article and the film are “substantially similar”.
“The court finds that there are enough alleged similarities between the article and the sequel for reasonable minds to differ on the issue of substantial similarity,” the judge wrote.
Top Gun is a jewel in Paramount’s portfolio of iconic intellectual property. Top Gun: Maverick was Paramount’s biggest box office opening since the release of Iron Man 2 in 2010 and has grossed $1.5-billion (R26.15-billion) worldwide since its opening May 27, according to Box Office Mojo.
Ehud Yonay published Top Guns in April 1983 in an issue of California magazine and registered it in the US Copyright Office later that year. Soon after it was published Paramount secured exclusive motion picture rights to the story, according to a complaint filed by his heirs in Los Angeles federal court.
The Yonays’ claim that after sending Paramount a statutory notice of termination under the Copyright Act in 2018, they became the sole owners of the US copyright for the story in 2020. They said they invoked a provision of the law that allows artists who transfer copyrights to reclaim those rights 35 years later. BM/DM
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