Paramount Pictures has declined to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that the 2022 Tom Cruise blockbuster “Top Gun: Maverick” borrowed heavily from the 1983 magazine article that inspired the original “Top Gun.” I won.
In Friday’s ruling, U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson in Los Angeles said the sequel is “not materially similar” to director Ehud Yonai’s “Top Gun,” which depicts the U.S. Navy’s Top Gun fighter pilot training school in San Diego. said.
Jonai’s copyright heirs, his widow Shosh Yonai and son Yuval Jonai, are selling a $1 billion deal based on Paramount’s article that “brings life to the technical tedium of naval bases.” After building a franchise, he said they deserved a share of the sequel’s profits.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Mark Toberoff said the plaintiffs plan to appeal.
“Once Jonai’s widow and son exercised their rights, [to] When he brought back his exhilarating story, Paramount said, “What’s the copyright? ’ and chased them away with my hands,” Toberoff said in a statement. “It doesn’t look good.”
Paramount said in a statement that it was “pleased that the court found that the plaintiffs’ claims are completely without merit.”
In Top Gun: Maverick, Cruise reprized his role as U.S. Navy test pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell.
It grossed $1.5 billion worldwide, making it Cruise’s biggest film and the 12th highest-grossing film according to Box Office Mojo.
The Israeli plaintiffs argued that the fictional “Maverick” was a “derivative” of the nonfiction “Top Guns” because of similarities in plot, characters, dialogue, setting, and themes.
But the judge said copyright law doesn’t protect factual elements such as the identities of real people in “Top Gun,” or familiar plot elements such as the pilot going on a mission, being shot down or having a ruckus at a bar. said.
He also said that themes identified in both works, such as the “pure love of flight” and the only specific dialogue, “The battle has begun,” are not protected by copyright law.
“A reasonable juror could not have found any substantial similarity in ideas or expressions,” Anderson wrote.
Anderson also said that after the Jonais terminated Paramount’s exclusive film rights to Ehud Jonai’s stories in 2020, Paramount included a “suggestion” credit in the original version of Top Gun. , said there was no need to credit Ehud Yonai in the sequel.
This article was published in the May 1983 issue of California magazine.
The case is Yonay et al v. Paramount Pictures Corp., U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, No. 22-03846.
