The 2022 mega hit Top Gun: Maverick has been hit with another lawsuit – this one involving its screenwriter’s cousin.
A year after one case was dismissed, Paramount Pictures again finds itself in court in a lawsuit related to its 2022 blockbuster, Top Gun: Maverick. This time, the cousin of one of its credited screenwriters is suing the studio, alleging that he carried out uncredited – and unpaid – work on its script.
The lawsuit’s plaintiff is Shaun Gray, the cousin of screenwriter Eric Singer. Gray’s better known for his digital effects work on such films as Get Smart and Piranha 3D, but according to his complaint, Gray spent “five months” working on the Maverick script at the invitation of his cousin.
Maverick’s script was ultimately credited to Singer, Christopher McQuarrie and Ehren Kruger, but Gray alleges that he “wrote key scenes for the screenplay that became the film’s central edge-of-your-seat dramatic action sequences.” Per the court document, Gray also claims to have “meticulous, time-stamped files and emails” to back up his case.
Read more: Top Gun: Maverick review | Crivens
As reported by Variety, one of the film’s advisers, JJ ‘Yank’ Cummings, appeared to confirm in a 2022 interview with GQ that Gray was indeed present when the script was being written.
Whether Gray’s case has a leg to stand on or not – and whether he’s owed a “pro-rata share of all profits” as is claimed – will be up to a New York court. In the meantime, Paramount has said the suit is “completely without merit.”
Gray’s lawyer in the case is Marc Toberoff, who previously represented the family of the late journalist Ehud Yonay. That case claimed that Top Gun: Maverick had infringed copyright law because its producers hadn’t re-acquired the rights to Yonay’s 1983 article which formed the basis for the original Top Gun in 1986. The case was ultimately dismissed by a California judge.
