‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Suit Can Move Forward Against Paramount

Paramount Pictures Corp. failed to persuade a judge to throw out a copyright lawsuit that claims the distributor released its blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick without securing a license from the estate of the writer whose story inspired the original film about four decades ago.

US District Judge Percy Anderson in Los Angeles allowed the lawsuit to move forward in a ruling Thursday, rejecting Paramount’s claim that the plaintiff hasn’t shown the article and the film are “substantially similar.”

“The court finds that there are enough alleged similarities between the article and the sequel for reasonable minds to differ on the ...