‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Copyright Suit Flies On As Paramount’s Motion To Dismiss Denied
deadline.comParamount has come up short in its effort to ground a Top Gun: Maverick copyright lawsuit. “Defendant’s primary argument in its Motion to Dismiss is that Plaintiffs have not sufficiently pled in their FAC that the Article and the Sequel are ‘substantially similar,'” said U.S.
District Judge Percy Anderson in a court order released today. “The Court disagrees.” “For all of the foregoing reasons, the Court denies the Motion to Dismiss,” the dense order added (read it here). “The Court concludes that the FAC contains sufficient well-pleaded facts to state viable claims for copyright infringement, breach of contract, and declaratory relief.” Or, as Tom Cruise says in the high flying blockbuster: “Mach 10?
Let’s give them Mach 10!” “While the Court declined to dismiss the case at this very early stage in the proceedings, we will continue to vigorously defend this lawsuit and are confident that discovery will confirm that the claims have no merit,” a Paramount Pictures spokesperson told Deadline this afternoon.
First filed back in June, and amended in August with an additional breach of contract claim, the complaint from the Israeli-based widow and son of the author of a 1983 article that inspired the original 1986 Top Gun flick says the 2022 sequel falls afoul of termination rights – aka you shouldn’t have made this “derivative” movie without our say-so.
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