Fighter pilots have a need for speed like studios have a need to make sequels to billion-dollar box office hits. Now those two needs are coming together. Pete Mitchell is getting ready to jump back into the cockpit again. A new report says Tom Cruise is currently developing Top Gun 3, a followup to the smash hit Top Gun: Maverick.
According to Puck, Cruise is working with Paramount for another installment in the Top Gun franchise. This early report says Maverick co-writer Ehren Kruger is already working on a draft, and that the film would also mark the returns of Miles Teller’s Rooster and Glen Powell’s Hangman. Jerry Bruckheimer and David Ellison are also set to produce again. As for Maverick director Joe Kosinski, he’s expected to either direct or produce. If he’s not behind the camera it’s unknown who would replace him.
While exciting news for fans, it’s not exactly surprising. And not just because Top Gun: Maverick earned six Oscar nominations, including a Best Picture nod and a win for Best Sound. It’s because it took home a whopping $1.4 billion at the worldwide box office when it finally came to theaters in 2022 following a lengthy release delay because of COVID. Ticket sales like that all but guaranteed we’d get another movie in the series. One without the more than thirty year gap between films like we got with the original 1986 movie and its sequel.
This report comes after recent news Cruise signed a non-exclusive deal with Warner Bros. That followed last month’s rumor Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount have discussed a potential merger. Will those two studios already be under one banner by the time Top Gun 3 is ready to soar? It very well might. Hollywood might need its franchise sequels, but it doesn’t exactly operate at the speed fighter pilots need.