Anne Hathaway Joins Tom Cruise for DAYS OF THUNDER Sequel, Paramount Sets 2028 Release Date
Tom Cruise is getting back behind the wheel as Cole Trickle, and Anne Hathaway is joining him for the ride.
Hathaway will star opposite Tom Cruise in Paramount Pictures’ upcoming follow-up to Days of Thunder, bringing some serious star power to Cruise’s return to the NASCAR world. Paramount will release the film in theaters on June 2, 2028.
The new film arrives nearly 40 years after director Tony Scott unleashed Days of Thunder in 1990. Paramount is going big with the sequel, which will be shot for IMAX and released in premium formats including Dolby Cinema and 4DX.
Cruise celebrated Hathaway’s casting on Saturday by sharing a promotional image of the two stars together at a NASCAR track, giving fans an early taste of what’s coming.
Cruise will reprise his role as Cole Trickle, the hotshot driver who made his name tearing around NASCAR tracks in the original movie. Details about the story are being kept under wraps, but Hathaway will play a race team owner and engineer.
Jonathan Levine, whose credits include Long Shot and the upcoming Mr. Irrelevant, is directing. Cruise will also produce the film alongside Jerry Bruckheimer and Tommy Harper.
The original Days of Thunder followed Trickle as he was recruited to join a new NASCAR team, where retired racing legend Harry Hogge, played by Robert Duvall, attempted to turn his raw talent into something that could survive at the highest level of stock car racing.
The movie also featured Nicole Kidman, Randy Quaid, and John C. Reilly, and became another memorable collaboration between Cruise and Scott following Top Gun.
Hathaway comes into Days of Thunder during an incredibly busy stretch of her career. She had four movies hit theaters in 2026, including Mother Mary, The Devil Wears Prada 2, The Odyssey, and The End of Oak Street.
She’ll finish the year with the Colleen Hoover adaptation Verity. Hathaway has also wrapped production on the Adam Driver military drama Alone at Dawn and is working on a third installment of the Disney franchise that helped launch her career, The Princess Diaries.
For Cruise, Days of Thunder marks a major return to one of his established franchises as he winds down Mission: Impossible. He also has another Top Gun movie in development and will shift gears into prestige drama with Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Digger, arriving this year.
Cruise returning as Cole Trickle nearly four decades later already makes this an interesting project, but pairing him with Hathaway as a race team owner and engineer gives the movie a fun new dynamic to play with.
Days of Thunder hits theaters June 2, 2028.
Source: Variety