Tom Cruise and Jerry Bruckheimer are discussing a return for Top Gun 2
This May will see the 30th anniversary of Top Gun, the highest-grossing movie of 1986 and the watershed moment in Tom Cruise’s career as a superstar. Despite years of sequel development and delays, some due to the actor’s own reluctance, Cruise now seems fully onboard a Top Gun 2 along with his original Top Gun and Days of Thunder producer Jerry Bruckheimer, as evidenced by a new tweet.
Just got back from a weekend in New Orleans to see my old friend @TomCruise and discuss a little Top Gun 2. pic.twitter.com/vA2xK7S7JS
— JERRY BRUCKHEIMER (@BRUCKHEIMERJB) January 26, 2016
This is the first major public movement on Top Gun 2 since November when Val Kilmer took to Facebook to proclaim he had been asked back to reprise the role of “Iceman,” although he later told Entertainment Weekly that he had “jumped the gun” and that “being offered a role is very different from doing a role.”
Meanwhile, Cruise told the Daily Mail last summer, “It would be fun. I would like to get back into those jets. It would have to be practical. I don’t want any CGI jets. I want to shoot it like how we shot the first one.”
The Top Gun sequel, a follow-up to Tony Scott’s 1986 hit, has been in the works for quite some time with Tom Cruise interested in reprising his role as United States Naval Aviator Lieutenant Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. Original helmer Tony Scott was interested in returning to the director’s chair himself prior to his tragic passing. Only days before Scott died in 2012, he and Cruise had been scouting locations at a naval air station in Fallon, Nevada.
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer previously outlined that the film will deal with the rise of unmanned drones and pilots becoming a thing of the past.
“The concept is, basically, are the pilots obsolete because of drones? [Tom Cruise as Maverick] is going to show them that they’re not obsolete. They’re here to stay,” Bruckheimer said.
Screenwriter Justin Marks (The Jungle Book) penned the most recent draft of the script, following a draft by Peter Craig (The Town).
Although no new director has been announced yet, Cruise has in recent years developed solid working relationships with both Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation/Jack Reacher director Christopher McQuarrie (who at one time had penned his own Top Gun 2 script) as well as Doug Liman, who called the shots on Edge of Tomorrow and the upcoming Mena.
Should Tom Cruise use one of his go-to directors for Top Gun 2 or find a new young hotshot? Should he make the sequel at all? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
