Judge tosses out writer's demand for Top Gun: Maverick writing credit

As we’ve reported before, said writer is a guy named Shaun Gray, an occasional writer and artist who is, notably, the cousin of credited Maverick screenwriter Eric Warren Singer.  Gray says he and his cousin worked together on the script for the film, including contributing multiple scenes that ended up in the final product. Per THR, a New York district judge has now ruled that he doesn’t think Gray has a suitable claim to co-ownership of the script, shooting down an argument that, because Gray never got a formal work-for-hire deal for his work on the script—which, as a matter of course, would have transferred his stake to Paramount—he retained any kind of ownership rights on the end result. (Gray claims he wrote “15 pivotal sequences” of the script, including the film’s opening action sequence, in which that dang Maverick just can’t stop himself from going too darn fast.)

Although the judge dismissed the ownership claim, he notably did not say Gray couldn’t seek damages for copyright infringement, so this may not be the last we’ve heard of this particular cousin-based drama. Gray’s is the second notable lawsuit to be brought in relation to Joseph Kosinkski’s hit; another suit, from the family of the journalist whose work inspired the original film, was shot down by a judge last year.