They demand Paramount Pictures for the script of “Top Gun: Maverick”

Paramount Pictures is being sued by the cousin of a screenwriter of Top Gun: Maverickwho alleges that he co -written the script.

In a lawsuit filed on Sunday in a federal court in New York, Shaun Gray He claims to have written key scenes for the film after the screenwriter Eric Warren Singer and the director Joseph Kosinski They will request their help to create the story behind the successful sequel. He requests a court order that forces Paramount to recognize him as a screenwriter and share the profits.

The demand marks the second legal battle for the rights of Top Gun: Maverick. In 2023, the heirs of the author of a 1983 magazine article that inspired the original film accused Paramount of moving forward with the project without renegotiating a new license. The plaintiff in the case, subsequently dismissed, was represented by Marc Uberooff, an expert in the termination of copyright.

In a statement, Paramount Pictures declared that this lawsuit, “Like the previously filed by Mr. Toboff to take advantage of Top Gun’s success: Maverick, he completely lacks foundation”. He added: “We trust that a court will also reject this lawsuit.”

Gray is a Cousin of Singer, who was hired by Kosinski to write the film after collaborating with him in Only The Brave. In his credits, he participated as a screenwriter in an episode of Shantaram and was Singer’s script assistant in The International. Has worked mainly as a digital artist, including The Magicians, Defiance and Two and a Half Men.

Shaun Gray’s demand against Paramount by Top Gun: Maverick

In the lawsuit, Gray states that Singer, after being hired by Paramount Pictures to write the script of the film as a job, contacted him in 2017 to co -write it at the request of Kosinski. During the next five months, He actively participated in script meetings and wrote key scenes for crucial action sequencesaccording to demand.

This includes the initial scene in which Maverick, played by Tom Cruisecarries a prototype of high -tech combat plane to the limit, beating speed records before the aircraft fails, and another sequence in which elite pilots repeatedly exceeds during a training exercise, culminating in an air combat with an apprentice. The demand includes files and emails with date and time that document the writing of the scenes.

Gray argues to be a co -author of the script, since he never signed an commission contract with Paramount, governing the employment relationship of a producer with a screenwriter and gives him the copyright of the script, unlike other Top Gun scriptwriters: Maverick, as Singer, Eric Kruger, Christopher Mcquarrie, Peter Craig and Justin Mark. He claims that he never signed a written contract about his work in the film.

The lawsuit seeks a court order for Gray to receive credits as a screenwriter from now on, so that Paramount includes it in future marketing campaigns and work related to the film, and to receive a part of the profits. If the court refuses to issue said order, Gray will file a claim for the violation of copyright and claim compensation for non -specified damages.