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The family of Ehud Yonay, the Israeli journalist who wrote in 1983 the article on which the
Top Gun movie was based,
sued the Paramount studio on Monday in Los Angeles for not complying with intellectual property rights, when developing
Top Gun: Maverick,
directed by
Joseph Kosinski and starring Tom Cruise
.
According to the form filed in Los Angeles federal court, no one from Paramount Global contacted Shosh Yonay, his widow, and Yuval Yonay, his son, to repurchase the rights
to Ehud Yonay's
Top Guns
article before to “create the sequel”.
"Deliberately, from the study they ignored that the intellectual rights to the article had been returned to us in January 2020," the Yonays say.
From Paramount they have declared to the Reuters agency: "That complaint is unfounded, and we will vigorously defend ourselves."
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The lawsuit speaks of damages but without specifying, including the benefits of
Top Gun: Maverick,
and asks that Paramount stop the distribution of the film and future renditions.
According to his version, Paramount obtained the rights to
Top Guns, published in May 1983 in
California
magazine ,
to shoot the film in 1986, and indeed that is how it appeared in its credits.
But on May 11, the Yonays sent a request to the Hollywood studio to stop
Top Gun: Maverick.
In response, Paramount denied that it was a sequel inspired by the 1983 article and that the film was sufficiently finished when the intellectual rights reverted to the family.
The Yonays insist that the film was not completed until May 2021.
Top Gun: Maverick
has already grossed more than 500 million euros worldwide.
In the US and Canada it has exceeded 272 million euros, making it the highest-grossing Tom Cruise film of his career, leaving behind
Steven Spieberg's
The War of the Worlds .