Can a Screenwriter Copyright a Sequel He Was Not Hired to Write?

On January 9, 2026, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Southern District of New York granted Paramount’s motion for summary judgment in Gray v. Paramount Global, No. 25-cv-3484 (S.D.N.Y.), dismissing a copyright infringement claim brought by a writer who claimed to have secretly co-authored key scenes in Top Gun: Maverick. In addition to ending Gray’s lawsuit, the ruling cleared the way for Paramount’s counterclaims against Gray for copyright infringement and common law fraud to proceed to trial.

Factual Background

Shaun Gray is the cousin of screenwriter Eric Warren Singer. In 2017, Paramount hired Singer under a work-made-for-hire agreement to write the screenplay for Top Gun: Maverick. As part of that agreement, Singer agreed his draft would be “solely written” by him. Paramount also hired director Joseph Kosinski under a similar agreement and authorized both to use Paramount’s preexisting Top Gun materials to develop the screenplay.

Gray alleged that Singer texted him on June 4, 2017, inviting him to help write the screenplay. Over the next several months, Gray participated in story meetings with Singer and Kosinski, discussed producers’ notes, delivered outlines, and drafted what he characterizes as key action sequences. Singer submitted his final draft to Paramount on November 3, 2017.

Throughout this period, Gray never had a contract with Paramount. He never signed a work-made-for-hire agreement. And Paramount was not directly aware of Gray’s involvement. Gray urged Singer to disclose his participation to Paramount and the Writers Guild of America (“WGA”), but Singer never did. When Top Gun: Maverick was released on May 27, 2022, it credited several screenwriters, but not Gray.

In January 2023, after the film’s release, Gray informed Paramount of his alleged contributions to the screenplay. In 2024, he registered a copyright in the scenes he claimed to have drafted (the “Gray Scenes”). He filed suit in April 2025, initially claiming both joint authorship and copyright infringement. Judge Rakoff dismissed the joint authorship claim at the motion to dismiss stage but allowed the copyright infringement claim to proceed. Paramount then filed counterclaims for copyright infringement and fraud.

Gray’s Copyright Was Invalid as a Matter of Law

Paramount moved for summary judgment on three independent theories for invalidating Gray’s copyright. The court found it needed to reach only the third.

First, Paramount argued that Gray composed his scenes as a work made for hire under a 2015 employment contract with Singer’s company, Bullsh!t Artists, which provided that Gray would “not acquire any rights of any kind or nature” in materials he assisted with. Gray contested whether that agreement governed his Top Gun: Maverick work, and the court found sufficient evidence to make this a jury question.

Second, Paramount argued the Gray Scenes were not independently copyrightable. The court had already rejected this argument at the motion to dismiss stage and declined to reconsider.

Third, Paramount argued that the Gray Scenes were unauthorized derivative works and therefore could not be copyrighted at all. The court agreed.

Under Second Circuit law, “unauthorized derivative works are typically afforded no copyright protection because they unlawfully infringe the exclusive rights of the original author.” Keeling v. Hars, 809 F.3d 43, 48 (2d Cir. 2015) (citing 17 U.S.C. §§ 103, 106). The original Top Gun film was fully copyrighted by Paramount, and the Gray Scenes were “materially based on the Top Gun universe, including characters, settings, and plot devices, as one would expect of such a sequel.”

Judge Rakoff analogized to Wozniak v. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., 726 F. Supp. 3d 213 (S.D.N.Y. 2024), where a writer penned an unauthorized story featuring Batman, the Riddler, and Gotham. After Warner Brothers made a film with similar elements, the writer sued for copyright infringement. Judge Engelmayer granted summary judgment for Warner Brothers, finding that the preexisting Batman material “pervade[d] the entire Story.” Gray’s situation was no different: “Like the plaintiff in Wozniak, Gray is a writer who indisputably based his entire script on existing material, including Top Gun characters, settings, and plot devices.” The court also cited Anderson v. Stallone, 1989 WL 206431 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 25, 1989), involving an unauthorized Rocky sequel, for the proposition that the Copyright Act “most certainly precludes the author of an unauthorized infringing derivative work from suing the author of the work which he has already infringed.”

Gray’s Three Counterarguments

Gray raised three arguments in response, and the court rejected all of them.

First, Gray invoked judicial estoppel, pointing to Yonay v. Paramount Pictures Corp., 2024 WL 2107721 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 5, 2024), a separate lawsuit over Top Gun: Maverick brought by the heirs of the author of the 1983 magazine article that inspired the original film. In the Yonay case, Paramount allegedly argued that much of the Top Gun universe was unprotectable. Judge Rakoff found that the Yonay court merely held the film and the magazine article were not substantially similar; it did not adopt a finding that the Top Gun universe was unprotected. Gray “utterly failed to direct this Court to a particular filing in that docket where Paramount makes an argument to that effect.”

Second, Gray argued he had an implicit right to use Top Gun material because Singer and Kosinski, who were authorized by Paramount, invited him to help. The court rejected this argument: “[U]nder their own contracts with Paramount, neither Singer nor Kosinski had any right to copyright what they produced for Top Gun: Maverick, let alone the authority to grant such an unusual right to Gray.” Gray argued there was at least a jury question on apparent authority, but he could not “point to a single word or action by Singer or Kosinski that would appear to a reasonable person to be conveying to Gray a right to independently copyright his derivative work.”

Third, Gray argued that even unauthorized derivative works may contain original elements sufficiently distinct to be copyrightable. The court acknowledged some authority for this principle but found it inapplicable to a sequel where “the characters were lifted lock, stock, and barrel from the prior … movies.” The derivative features “supply the entire context and foundation in ways that totally invade Paramount’s prior copyright.”

Paramount’s Counterclaims Survive

Gray had also moved for summary judgment on Paramount’s counterclaims for copyright infringement and common law fraud, arguing both were time-barred and that the fraud claim failed on the merits. The court denied the motion on all grounds.

On timeliness, Gray argued that Paramount had imputed knowledge of his role beginning in 2017 through Singer and Kosinski, whom he characterized as Paramount’s agents. However, Singer’s and Kosinski’s contracts with Paramount each contained an express disclaimer that “[n]othing herein contained shall constitute either party the agent of the other.” The court found Gray’s evidence of agency was “hardly sufficient” to warrant summary judgment in his favor. And on the fraud claim’s six-year statute of limitations, the court reiterated its prior holding that the claim did not accrue until the film’s 2022 release, when Paramount’s alleged damages (the “cloud upon their title”) actualized. (How much of a shadow the cloud cast on the 15th-highest grossing film of all time [adjusted for inflation] is a separate issue.)

On the merits of the fraud counterclaim, the court found sufficient evidence for a jury on each element. The duty to disclose arose because Gray possessed “superior knowledge, not readily available to the other,” and knew that Paramount was “acting on the basis of mistaken knowledge”; specifically, the belief that Singer was the sole author, as his contract provided. No direct transaction between Gray and Paramount was required. And Paramount’s reliance was reasonable: “Because Paramount had a contract with Singer that he would be the sole author of the Singer draft, it had no reason to suspect the contract had been violated.”

The court also rejected Gray’s invocations of New York’s litigation privilege and the Noerr-Pennington doctrine, noting that Paramount’s fraud counterclaim was not premised on Gray’s filing of this lawsuit but on his years-long concealment of his involvement in the screenplay.

The Takeaway

The case presents a vivid application of the unauthorized derivative work doctrine. A writer who contributes to a franchise sequel without the IP owner’s knowledge or authorization does not merely fail to acquire copyright protection. The writer is potentially exposed to liability for infringement and fraud. Gray’s copyright registration did not save him; the presumption of validity was rebutted by the undisputed fact that his scenes were built entirely on Paramount’s copyrighted universe.

Gray v. Paramount Global, No. 25-cv-3484 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 9, 2026) (Rakoff, J.).