‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Copyright Lawsuit Should Be Grounded, Paramount Says

deadline.com:

“It’s not the plane, it’s the pilot,” they say in the Tom Cruise-starring blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick, and that’s kind of what Paramount thinks about a copyright lawsuit they’ve been slapped with over the fighter jet film.“When the Court reviews the article and Maverick, as opposed to Plaintiffs’ irrelevant and misleading purported comparison of the works, it is clear as a matter of law that Maverick does not borrow any of the article’s protected expression,” says Paramount in a motion to dismiss response filed Friday in federal court in California.“Plaintiffs do not have a monopoly over works about Top Gun.”The dispute is between Paramount Pictures and the Israeli-based widow and son of the author of a 1983 article that inspired the original 1986 movie.In a copyright suit filed earlier this summer in California federal court, Shosh Yonay and Yuval Yonay want unspecified but clearly big-bucks damages from the studio.

They also requested an injunction to stop screenings and distribution of the May 27-released sequel, as well as any more more movies in the franchise.Calling Top Gun: Maverick “derivative,” the Marc Toberoff- and Alex Kozinski-represented Yonays alleged that Paramount is “thumbing its nose at the statute” that allows the termination of rights after 35 years (read the court complaint here).The studio response Friday claimed the film doesn’t borrow from the article.Seeking unspecfied damages, the family originally claimed that the “derivative” Maverick sequel runs contrary to the termination rights that they claim they hold over the property.“To the contrary, any similarity between these vastly different works derives from the fact that Top Gun is an actual naval training facility,” states the August 26th