Tom Cruise Won’t Make TOP GUN 3 Unless It Can Beat MAVERICK
Top Gun 3 is still flying somewhere out there on the horizon, and while Paramount isn’t ready to roll out the flight plan just yet, Glen Powell has shared a promising little update that should get fans excited.
The big thing? Tom Cruise doesn’t want to make another Top Gun movie just because the last one made a mountain of money.
He wants Top Gun 3 to earn its place, and according to Powell, Cruise won’t suit up again as Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell unless the new film has a real shot at topping Top Gun: Maverick.
That’s a pretty high bar. Maverick became one of those rare legacy sequels that actually delivered on the hype, bringing back Cruise’s iconic pilot while introducing a new generation of aviators, including Powell’s scene-stealing Hangman and Miles Teller as Rooster.
Powell recently spoke with Esquire and was asked about where things stand with Top Gun 3. At first, he didn’t give much away, saying, “I probably know as much as you do.”
But he did reveal that he recently had a phone call with Cruise, and the two also had dinner in London.
Eventually, Powell opened up a little more and offered something for fans to chew on, saying, “I know general brushstrokes of a story. I haven’t read anything.”
He also talked about his conversations with Cruise and Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced Top Gun: Maverick and is returning for the next film.
Powell added, “Tom’s not going to do it unless he thinks it can beat Maverick. Hopefully I’m not the age of Maverick in Maverick by the time I make it.”
That is exactly the kind of attitude fans want to hear. Cruise has built a career on pushing action cinema as far as he possibly can, and Top Gun: Maverick was a perfect example of that.
The aerial sequences were insane, the emotional story worked, and the movie managed to honor the original Top Gun without feeling like a lazy nostalgia play.
Paramount officially announced the third film in the franchise during its CinemaCon presentation following the massive success of Top Gun: Maverick.
Cruise is confirmed to return as Maverick, with Bruckheimer back as producer and Ehren Kruger working on the screenplay.
While nothing has been locked in publicly regarding the full cast, Teller and Powell could also return as Rooster and Hangman, respectively.
Bringing those characters back would make a lot of sense, especially after the way Maverick passed some of the emotional and dramatic weight to the next generation of pilots.
As for the story, details are still being kept under wraps, but Joseph Kosinski, who directed Top Gun: Maverick, has teased that the next chapter could push Maverick into a much bigger kind of conflict.
During a previous interview, Kosinski said, “It’s a really existential crisis that Maverick has in this, and it’s much bigger than himself. It actually… I’m trying to describe it without giving anything away.
“It’s an existential question that Maverick has to deal with that would make Maverick feel small, I think, as a movie, compared to what we’re talking about.”
That is a fascinating tease because Top Gun: Maverick already felt massive in scope, but it was still rooted in Maverick’s personal journey, his grief over Goose, his bond with Rooster, and his struggle to find where he fit in a changing military world.
If Top Gun 3 is going even bigger while still keeping Maverick at the center of an emotional story, Cruise and the creative team have a serious challenge ahead of them.
Nobody involved sounds interested in rushing this thing out just to cash in on the name.
Cruise wants the next movie to be better than Maverick, and whether or not that is even possible, it’s the right mindset going in.
For now, Top Gun 3 is still in development, but Powell’s update makes it sound like the engines are warming up.
It may be a while before Maverick takes to the skies again, but if Cruise is waiting for a story that can truly compete with Top Gun: Maverick, that patience could pay off in a big way.
Source: Esquire