Tom Cruise is reportedly heading back to the skies in a third Top Gun movie.
According to a Thursday, January 11, report from Puck, Paramount has tapped Top Gun: Maverick cowriter Ehren Kruger to work on a script for a third movie. Execs are also reportedly hoping that Maverick director Joseph Kosinski will return for the sequel along with Cruise, Miles Teller and Glen Powell.
Cruise, 61, recently signed a major development deal with Warner Bros., but his new arrangement isn’t exclusive, meaning he’s allowed to work with other studios — and thus could feasibly return as Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell.
Top Gun: Maverick hit theaters in May 2022, more than 35 years after the original Top Gun debuted in 1996. Maverick ultimately became the second-highest-grossing film of 2022 and the highest-grossing film of Cruise’s entire career. It also scored six nominations, taking home the trophy for Best Sound.
In March 2023, an insider exclusively told Us Weekly that Cruise was “over the moon” about the film’s success.
“Filmmaking for Tom these days is all about creating the whole package and making it work and make money, as opposed to having that one scene in the film where he cries or yells and generates the perfect ‘Oscars clip,’” the insider added. “Tom has grown out of caring about that stuff, and in the process has grown into an absolutely killer businessman and producer.”
While Cruise hasn’t confirmed whether he’ll do a third Top Gun movie, his younger Maverick costars are on board for a sequel. “My whole cast, we would all be there in a heartbeat,” Jay Ellis, who played Reuben “Payback” Fitch, told Fox News Digital in November 2022. “We would be grateful to be there.”
Teller, who played Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, has previously noted that all sequel decisions are in the hands of Cruise, whom he calls “TC.”
“That would be great, but that’s all up to TC,” Teller, 36, told Entertainment Tonight in July 2022. “It’s all up to Tom. I’ve been having some conversations with him about it. We’ll see.”
Teller’s character, Rooster, is the son of Nick “Goose” Bradshaw, played by Anthony Edwards in the original Top Gun. Goose, who served as Maverick’s wingman, died during a training exercise. In Top Gun: Maverick, Rooster struggles to get along with Maverick, who he blames for his father’s death.
Goose only appears in Maverick in flashbacks, for obvious reasons, but Edwards, 61, still had a “fantastic” time watching the film. “It’s the biggest movie that I’m in that I never had to show up for a day of work, so it was fun,” he joked to Entertainment Tonight in June 2022.
