Paramount files to dismiss ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ lawsuit

They want out of the danger zone.

A lawsuit over the rights to “Top Gun: Maverick” should be dismissed as meritless, according to Paramount Pictures.

The studio was sued in June over the “Top Gun” sequel, with plaintiffs Shosh and Yuval Yonay claiming that Paramount no longer had the rights to the film.

Paramount bought the original “Top Gun” rights from Ehud Yonay, who penned a 1983 magazine article about U.S. Navy flight school. The movie debuted in 1986, and the copyright expired in 2018.

Ehud Yonay died in 2012, but his widow, Shosh, and son, Yuval, maintained the copyright, according to their lawsuit.

However, Paramount argued in its motion to dismiss that there were major differences between Yonay’s original article and “Top Gun: Maverick.”

“Any similarity between these vastly different works derives from the fact that Top Gun is an actual naval training facility,” Paramount argued. “Plaintiffs do not have a monopoly over works about Top Gun.”

Paramount claimed that there were significant differences between Yonay’s nonfiction article and the movie starring Tom Cruise as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell.

“Elite fighter pilots loving to fly, and being dedicated to their craft and competitive, are facts described in the Article,” Paramount wrote in its motion to dismiss. “Plaintiffs do not have a monopoly over these (unremarkable) facts merely because Yonay once reported on them.”

The Yonays argued that “Maverick” was “derivative” of the original film and therefore the copyright should still apply. They sought unspecified monetary damages. “Top Gun: Maverick” has made more than $1.4 billion at the box office.

Released in May, “Top Gun: Maverick” was celebrated by critics and audiences alike. It quickly became the highest-grossing film of the year and later the highest-grossing film of Tom Cruise’s career.