TOP GUN: MAVERICK Director Shot 800 Hours of Footage for the Film!
Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski went to the absolute extreme while shooting the long-awaited sequel. The director recently revealed he actually shot approximately 800 hours of footage for the film, and that is absolutely insane!
Just to give you some perspective on that number, that’s just as much footage as Peter Jackson shot for the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. Kosinski recently shared this information in a recent interview with Empire and he explained why he shot so much footage:
“Out of a 12 or 14-hour day, you might get 30 seconds of good footage. But it was so hard-earned. It just took a very long time to get it all. Months and months of aerial shooting. We shot as much footage as the three ‘Lord of the Rings’ movies combined. I think it was 800 hours of footage.”
Tom Cruise went on to add that in order to shoot the scenes inside the fighter jet cockpits, the actors had to learn how to use the equipment themselves and set up their shots. He said:
“We had to teach the actors about lighting, about cinematography, about editing. I had to teach them how to turn the cameras on and off, and about camera angles and lenses. We didn’t have unlimited time in these jets. If they were going up for 20-30 minutes, I had to make sure that we got what we needed.”
It sounds like shooting this film was an intense and crazy experience for everyone involved! What an awesome film production to be a part of!
Top Gun: Maverick also stars 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.
Paramount Pictures is opening the action movie in U.S. theaters on May 27.