Both Paramount and self-declared Top Gun: Maverick screenwriter Shaun Gray received an unachieved objective result this week in their legal dogfight over the Tom Cruise blockbuster.
Following July 18 arguments from the parties in front of Judge Jed S. Rakoff on keeping the four-month-old lawsuit from Gray airborne or grounded, the New York City-based federal judge offered a mixed result that pleased no one.
“After careful consideration, the Court grants in part and denies in part the defendants’ motion to dismiss,” wrote Judge Rakoff on Wednesday in a two-page order. “Specifically, the Court dismisses with prejudice the joint authorship and ownership claim, as well as the related claim for an accounting and payment of profits, gains, benefits, and advantages; however, the Court denies the motion to dismiss the copyright infringement claim.”
He ended with a bit of a judicial zinger: “An Opinion explaining the reasons for this ruling will issue in due course.”
All of which means the cousin of Maverick‘s Oscar-nominated scribe Eric Warren Singer won’t get his hands on a back-end cut of the 2022’s movie’s sky-high $1.5 billion box office. It also means that Gray may see some reward for his alleged script contribution. All of which makes this is a bit of a mess — at least until Rakoff gets around to explaining the teased-out reasons for his ruling.
In his initial filing in April, Gray insisted he was brought on board by his cousin Singer and director Joseph Kosinski to help out. He claims he “wrote key scenes for the screenplay that became the Film’s central edge-of-your-seat dramatic action sequences that made it a smash hit.” That claim has been validated to some degree by Maverick military advisor Captain JJ “Yank” Cummings, who has spoken publicly about Gray’s contribution in pressure-cooker hotel writing sessions.
With a third Top Gun planned and Skydance’s recently approved $8 billion purchase of Paramount, the stakes are higher than ever for all concerned out of Wednesday’s ruling.
Having said that, neither Paramount reps nor Gray’s powder-packin’ lawyer Marc Toberoff had any comment on the ruling when contacted by Deadline, but the reality is everyone is half-alive and half-dead now in this action.
While not at the level of Singer, Gray has credits for working as a writer’s assistant for his cousin on 2009’s The International, and as an uncredited writer’s consultant on 2017’s Only the Brave that Kosinski directed and Singer co-wrote. Otherwise, Gray has mainly held digital artist jobs in the industry. The notable exception being his stint as a staff writer on Apple TV’s short-lived Shantaram.