With information from Reuters

This Monday morning, Paramount Pictures was notified of a lawsuit for copyright infringement derived from its latest film Top Gun: Maverick.

The lawsuit filed by the family of the author, whose article inspired the 1986 Tom Cruise film, in a federal court in Los Angeles, states that the Paramount Global unit did not reacquire the rights to the article from his family before releasing the sequel to the movie.

In the opinion of the Yonay family, the film company deliberately ignored that the copyright reverted to them in January 2020, “mocking” federal copyright law.

In turn, Paramount did not immediately respond to requests for comments, however, in a report they stated that: “These claims lack merit and we will vigorously defend ourselves.”

According to the suit, Paramount “knowingly failed” to obtain a new license for the film after the Yonays regained their rights in 2020. They sent the studio a cease and desist letter regarding Top Gun: Maverick on May 11, 2022. two weeks before its release. Paramount allegedly denied that the film was a copyrighted derivative of the story.

Likewise, it was known that the lawsuit seeks an unspecified compensation for loses and damages, including some benefits from Top Gun: Maverick, and to prevent Paramount from distributing the film or new sequels.

 It is important to note that Top Gun: Maverick is the highest-grossing film of this year so far, and has added 291 million dollars in North America and 548.6 million dollars worldwide in its first 10 days of release.