Top Gun: Maverick is set in a world of drone technology and fifth-generation fighters along with exploring the end of the era of dogfighting. Maverick (once again played by Tom Cruise) is now a flight instructor, who takes Bradley Bradshaw (played by Miles Teller), the son of Maverick’s late partner Nick “Goose” Bradshaw, under his wing. The film also stars Jon Hamm, Val Kilmer, Jennifer Connelly, Glen Powell, and Ed Harris.
We got our first, official trailer for the movie in July 2019, and a second trailer arrived in mid-December. With Maverick currently scheduled to hit theaters in June 2020, here’s everything we know about the Top Gun sequel so far.
Tom Cruise returns as Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, somehow still active as a Navy aviator 34 years after the release of “Top Gun.”
In the new issue of Empire magazine, Tom Cruise explained that he would only agree to star in Top Gun: Maverick, a sequel to 1986’s Top Gun, if “I’m not going to do the CGI stuff.” That’s really Cruise in the cockpit doing the high-flying stunts — his co-stars, including Miles Teller and Glenn Powell, are up there, too, and they had an easier time adjusting to the “g-force-heavy action sequences” than the (non-Tom Cruise) actors in the first Top Gun, who “all threw up,” according to producer Jerry Bruckheimer.
“I said to the studio, ‘You don’t know how hard this movie’s going to be. No one’s ever done this before,’” [Cruise] laughs. “There’s never been an aerial sequence shot this way. I don’t know if there ever will be again, to be honest.”
Tom Cruise ‘never thought’ a Top Gun sequel would happen. The 57-year-old actor reprises his role as pilot Peter ‘Maverick’ Mitchell in the upcoming sequel Top Gun: Maverick, 34 years after starring in the original.
The Mission: Impossible star wanted to make the movie cinematically authentic and avoid using CGI.
Tom explained: ‘We just started talking. And I realized that there were things that we could accomplish cinematically.
Jerry Bruckheimer also returns to produce the motion picture having served in the same role for the original and has said Tom wanted his co-stars, including Miles Teller and Glen Powell, to experience piloting the planes.
The 76-year-old producer said: ‘What’s different about this movie is that [in the original Top Gun] we put the actors in the F-14s and we couldn’t use one frame of it, except some stuff on Tom, because they all threw up.
‘It’s hysterical to see their eyes roll back in their heads. So everything was done on a gimbal. But in this movie, Tom wanted to make sure the actors could actually be in the F-18s.’
The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is a twin-engine, supersonic, all-weather, carrier-capable, multirole combat jet, designed as both a fighter and attack aircraft. One plane costs around $50M.
Tom added he warned the studio about how challenging the film would be to make.
He remarked: ‘I said to the studio, “You don’t know how hard this movie’s going to be. No-one’s ever done this before.” There’s never been an aerial sequence shot this way. I don’t know if there ever will be again, to be honest.’
The film is scheduled for release in the US on June 24.
