‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Writer’s Cousin Sues Paramount, Says Studio Manipulated Him Out of Credit for Key Scenes

Shaun Gray, cousin of credited “Top Gun: Maverick” screenwriter Eric Singer, sued Paramount Global on Sunday, saying the studio manipulated and exploited him out of credit and compensation for portions of the script he claims to have written.

Gray claimed in his suit, filed in New York, that he not only participated in story meetings with Singer and “Maverick” director Joseph Kosinski but also wrote “key scenes” in the film’s screenplay that “became the film’s central edge-of-your-seat dramatic action sequences.”

Gray alleged that he was “manipulated and exploited by Hollywood power players” and, therefore, not properly credited or compensated for his work on the 2022 blockbuster.

While Gray has worked primarily as a visual effects artist in Hollywood, he was credited as a writing consultant to Singer on 2017’s “Only the Brave,” which Kosinski also directed, and as Singer’s writer’s assistant on the 2009 thriller “The International.” Gray has claimed in his suit against Paramount that he “maintained meticulous, time-stamped files and emails that document and track his writing” on the “Top Gun: Maverick” screenplay.

Singer, Ehren Kruger and “Mission: Impossible — Fallout” director Christopher McQuarrie are officially credited as the film’s writers, while Peter Craig and Justin Marks were given Story By credits for the “Top Gun” sequel. Gray maintains that he wrote around a dozen scenes that ended up in the film.

This is the second lawsuit that has been filed against Paramount regarding “Top Gun: Maverick.” The other, which was also handled like Gray’s by intellectual property attorney Marc Toberoff, claimed that the rights to the original magazine story that inspired the first “Top Gun” had reverted back to the heirs of the story’s author before Paramount moved forward with “Top Gun: Maverick.” That suit was dismissed in Paramount’s favor in April 2024.

“This lawsuit, like the one previously brought by Mr. Toberoff in an attempt to benefit off of the success of ‘Top Gun: Maverick,’ is completely without merit,” a Paramount Pictures spokesperson told TheWrap in response to Gray’s lawsuit. “We are confident that a court will reject this claim as well.”

A source close to the matter told TheWrap that Gray was Singer’s writer’s assistant and that this is nothing more than a “family dispute.” Gray’s suit, however, contends that he is a joint author of both the “Top Gun: Maverick” screenplay and the finished film and, consequently, a joint owner of its copyright.

He is seeking proper attribution (namely, a shared “screenplay by” credit on “any new copies made of the film”), restitution of all “benefits, compensation, profits, and advantages wrongfully obtained” from his alleged work, the imposition of a “constructive trust over all proceeds, profits, compensation, and other ill-gotten gains and benefits received or to be received” by Paramount and coverage of all the costs of his lawsuit, including his attorneys’ fees.

The post ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Writer’s Cousin Sues Paramount, Says Studio Manipulated Him Out of Credit for Key Scenes appeared first on TheWrap.