Tom Cruise paused from getting spotted with Ana de Armas and promoting Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning to update fans about Top Gun 3. The first film, Top Gun, was released in 1986 and follows Cruise as Lieutenant Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, a naval aviator. Together with his radar intercept officer, Lieutenant Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards), they trained at the United States Navy’s Fighter Weapon School (Top Gun).
Top Gun 3 is Happening
In an interview with the Australian show Today (via MovieWeb), the actor and film producer gave fans a positive update about the development of the aviation movie. He said, “Yeah, we’re thinking and talking about many different stories and what could we do and what’s possible. It took me 35 years to figure out Top Gun: Maverick. So, all of these things we’re working on, we’re discussing Days of Thunder and Top Gun: Maverick.”
Cruise added, “There’s numerous other films that we’re actively working on right now. I’m always shooting a film, prepping a film, posting a film. I just finished a film with Alejandro Iñárritu, who did The Revenant. That was an extraordinary experience, and [Christopher McQuarrie] and I are always working on several different films.”
Tom Cruise Wants Fans to Get What They Paid For
Jay Ellis, who played Reuben “Payback” Fitch in the second movie, said in an interview with US Weekly (via Collider), “Tom is a stickler, and that really comes from him wanting to make sure the audience gets what they paid for and that they’re entertained, that for those two hours, they can fully disappear in this theater, and the world around them doesn’t exist anymore.”
He also revealed that the team was “still working on the script” since everybody wanted to get the story right.
The third movie is expected to be a direct sequel to Top Gun: Maverick. Released in theaters on May 27, 2022, it stars an all-ensemble cast. Alongside Cruise, the cast also includes Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Monica Barbaro, Lewis Pullman, Ed Harris, and Val Kilmer. Kilmer reprised his role from the first movie. The second movie follows Maverick confronting his past and training a group of younger Top Gun graduates for a mission.
Top Gun: Maverick was a commercial and critical success. It became the highest-grossing movie of Cruise’s career, making it easier to greenlight the third movie.
