IMAX CEO Urged Paramount Pictures Not To Push Back The Release of TOP GUN: MAVERICK

Lots of fans were pretty upset when Paramount Pictures announced that they pushed back the release of Top Gun: Maverick until May of 2022. That just seemed ridiculous to me, but it’s something that we have to live with. IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond actually urged the studio not to push the film back.

During a recent interview with Deadline, Gelfond shared, “I have spent a lot of time close to a lot of the decision makers at Paramount and… in Top Gun they think they have something very special. Tom Cruise waited more than 35 years to make that movie. I think they just feel that for that franchise, and with that kind of quality, they want to make sure the box office is 100%.”

He then added, “It is so good as a matter of fact I tried to urge them [to keep the date] because I think that whatever conditions there are, people would flock to see it. But I think they just want perfect conditions around it.”

I agree with him! I think people would totally flock to theaters to watch this movie! I get that the studio wants perfect conditions, but I don’t think there are any perfect conditions. In fact, I think delaying the film further will actually hurt the movie more than help it. I just see so many people have a lack of interest in films that have been delayed for so long. Regardless, IMAX doesn’t think there will be a negative impact on them because they are going to have a great 2022 without Top Gun:

“So between the combination of those things, the fact that Top Gun moved, I am personally disappointed, but it will not be very negative for us and a tremendous positive in 2022.”

I doubt Paramount will change their mind in regard to the new release date, but I know a lot of fans would be so happy if the movie was moved back to being released this year.

Top Gun: Maverick stars Tom Cruise, who is reprising his role from the original film, and he will be joined by Miles Teller as Goose's son, Glen Powell, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Ed Harris, Val Kilmer, and Lewis Pullman. Here’s the synopsis that was previously released:

After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. When he finds himself training a detachment of Top Gun graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen, Maverick encounters Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller), call sign: “Rooster,” the son of Maverick’s late friend and Radar Intercept Officer Lt. Nick Bradshaw, aka “Goose.”

Facing an uncertain future and confronting the ghosts of his past, Maverick is drawn into a confrontation with his own deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who will be chosen to fly it.

We can expect to see some wicked awesome aerial sequences in the film. Cruise previously teased, “There’s never been an aerial sequence shot this way. I don’t know if there ever will be again, to be honest.”

The movie will hit theaters on May 27, 2022.