'Top Gun' Lawsuit: Story Heirs, Paramount Trade Barbs Over Plot Ideas

Logo text Paramount and the heirs to the author of a 1983 magazine story that the original Top Gun was based on are each moving for a federal judge to declare victory in their favor in a copyright lawsuit revolving around the blockbuster sequel. In a summary judgment motion filed on Monday, the two sides trade arguments over the copyrightability of certain aspects of Ehud Yonay’s article and Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski’s inspirations for some parts of the movie alleged to infringe on the writer’s intellectual property. As evidence that filmmakers copied parts of his article, Yonay’s heirs, Shosh and Yuval, point to scenes and plot devices in the sequel that were detailed in the story but did not appear in the original. At the top list is a scene at a Navy base bar in which Tom Cruise’s Maverick has to buy a round of drinks for placing his cell phone on the counter. Paramount maintains that any similarities between the material is a result of drawing from uncopyrightable facts, which were obtained by consulting with the Navy. In a declaration submitted to the court, Kosinski says that he wrote the scene into the movie after he
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