They argue the studio lacked the rights to Ehud Yonay’s 1983 story “Top Guns” when it released Top Gun: Maverick.

The film made $548m (£438m) globally in its first 10 days.

Paramount argues the claim was “without merit” and will contest it.

The lawsuit was filed this week at the Los Angeles federal court by Shosh and Yuval Yonay, Mr Ehud’s widow and son. It claims Paramount failed to reacquire the rights to the magazine article. The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified damages from the film studio.

They contest that the Top Gun franchise would not have existed without Ehud’s “literary efforts and evocative prose and narrative”. The lawsuit states that the Yonays told Paramount in 2018 that its rights to the article would expire two years later.

“Much as Paramount wants to pretend otherwise, they made a sequel to Top Gun after they lost their copyright,” the Yonays’ lawyer Marc Toberoff, told the BBC.

Paramount said in a statement: “These claims are without merit, and we will defend ourselves vigorously.”