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In
a decision on Friday, U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson in Los
Angeles said the sequel was not "substantially similar" to Ehud
Yonay's "Top Guns," about the U.S. Navy's Top Gun fighter pilot
training school in San Diego.
Yonay's widow Shosh Yonay and son Yuval Yonay, heirs to his
copyright, said they deserved some of the sequel's profits,
after Paramount built a billion-dollar franchise off an article
that "breathed life into the technical humdrum of a navy base."
The plaintiffs will appeal, their lawyer Marc Toberoff said.
"Once Yonay's widow and son exercised their rights [to] reclaim
his exhilarating story, Paramount hand-waved them away
exclaiming 'What copyright?'" Toberoff said in a statement.
"It's not a good look."
Paramount said in a statement, "We are pleased that the court
recognized that plaintiffs' claims were completely without
merit."
"Top Gun: Maverick" featured Cruise reprising his role as U.S.
Navy test pilot Pete "Maverick" Mitchell.
It grossed $1.5 billion worldwide, becoming Cruise's biggest
film, and is the 12th highest-grossing film according to Box
Office Mojo.
The plaintiffs, both from Israel, claimed that the fictional
"Maverick" was "derivative" of nonfictional "Top Guns" because
of similar plots, characters, dialogue, settings and themes.
But the judge said copyright law does not protect factual
elements such as the identities of real people in "Top Guns," or
familiar plot elements such as pilots embarking on missions,
being shot down or carousing at a bar.
He also said copyright law does not protect themes such as "the
sheer love of flying," or the only specific dialogue - "Fight's
on" - identified in both works.
"No reasonable juror could find substantial similarity of ideas
and expression," Anderson wrote.
Anderson also said Paramount was not required to credit Ehud
Yonay in the sequel, as it had in the original "Top Gun" with a
"suggested by" credit, after the Yonays in 2020 terminated
Paramount's exclusive movie rights to his article.
The 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, Central District of California, No. 22-03846.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York: Editing by Devika
Syamnath and Richard Chang)
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