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A federal appeals court on Friday tossed a copyright lawsuit claiming Tom Cruise’s 2022 hit sequel “Top Gun: Maverick” improperly used material from a magazine article that inspired the original 1986 film.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California ruled that “Top Gun: Maverick” was not similar enough to Ehud Yonay’s 1983 article “Top Guns,” about the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School, for Paramount to have breached its 1983 agreement with the writer.
U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson for the Central District of California previously dismissed the case in 2024.
California Magazine published “Top Guns,” an 11-page article written by Yonay in 1983, which described the Fighter Weapons School, later renamed the Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor Program, a Navy program that teaches advanced air-combat tactics.
The movie “Top Gun”, was directed by Tony Scott and featured Anthony Edwards as Lt. Nick “Goose” Bradshaw and Tom Cruise as Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)
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Shortly after “Top Guns” was published, Yonay granted Paramount all rights to the article, accepting a fixed payment with the condition that he would be credited in any movies “substantially based upon or adapted from” the article.
Paramount credited Yonay in the first movie, but following Yonay’s death in 2012, his widow and son took over the copyright and terminated the agreement with Paramount.
Two years later, in 2022, Paramount released “Top Gun: Maverick,” a sequel to the original movie, which raked in $160.5 million in its first four days.
The original “Top Gun” movie was the top-grossing film of 1986 from Paramount Pictures. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)
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Paramount did not compensate or credit the Yonays, spurring a lawsuit filed in the Central District of California.
The court found “Top Guns” and “Top Gun: Maverick” were not “substantially similar,” as required to establish copyright infringement.
Glen Powell starred alongside Tom Cruise in the wildly successful 2022 film “Top Gun: Maverick.” (Han Myung-Gu/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures)
While the works had “some similarities,” the court explained, those similarities were “based on unprotected elements” like facts about the Top Gun program, “general plot ideas, [and] familiar stock scenes and themes.”
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Paramount did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
The Yonays could not immediately be reached for comment.