Last week, Paramount officially announced “Top Gun 3” at CinemaCon. They said it was “in the works,” but the sequel might actually be closer to production start than we think.
The script by Ehren Kruger and Christopher McQuarrie will be turned in very soon, and word is that producer Jerry Bruckheimer is fully acknowledging the fact that “Top Gun: Maverick” director Joe Kosinski will not return.
You see, Kosinski is currently booked with back-to-back projects, including a U.F.O. thriller for Apple, and Universal’s “Miami Vice” reboot. A few days ago I wrote about Kosinski’s unlikeliness to return and put it out there that Christopher McQuarrie, Tom Cruise’s right-hand man, was rumored to be in contention to take over.
Cruise currently has no planned film to shoot this year, and in the fall he’ll be hard at work promoting, and potentially Oscar campaigning, his work in Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s “Digger.”
Word is that Paramount wants ‘Top Gun 3’ to be Cruise’s next project, so the studio and producer Bruckheimer have begun approaching talent agencies for directors.
The sequel is set to reunite Cruise with co-stars Miles Teller and Glen Powell, along with producers Bruckheimer and David Ellison. Powell mentioned in 2024 that the cast had been asked to “hold a date” for filming, though no specific timeline was given. Might it be 2027?
‘Top Gun: Maverick’ was a massive hit, earning $1.4 billion globally — even without a release in China. It became a genuine cultural phenomenon, drawing audiences back to theaters in the midst of the pandemic. A threequel was practically a no-brainer, especially with Cruise now seemingly done with the ‘Mission: Impossible’ franchise.