After a break of 36 years, Tom Cruise’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell suited up once again and took to the skies in arguably one of the most exciting and successful 2022 movies with Top Gun: Maverick. The movie, a success at the box office as well as a major hit with critics, got everyone thinking about the future of the franchise, specifically when, or if, we will see Top Gun 3.
Following the film’s successful rollout, Top Gun: Maverick producers and stars have understandably been asked about the future of the franchise and what they think would need to happen in order for Maverick to suit up at least one more time. And while there's been no official word or reports about a planned sequel to Top Gun: Maverick, with the movie breaking even more records upon its streaming debut, now seems like the perfect time to see what the likes of Jerry Bruckheimer, Joseph Kosinski, and others have to say about the possibility of another movie at some point in the future...
Joseph Kosinski Thinks There Needs To Be A ‘Compelling’ Reason To Go Back
With Top Gun: Maverick pulling in nearly $1.5 billion in ticket receipts worldwide, according to BoxOfficeMojo, one would think Paramount Pictures, Tom Cruise, and director Joseph Kosinski would be eager to make the most of the success and quickly greenlight Top Gun 3. That, however, has not been the case more than six months after its release, and no one involved with the franchise has given a definitive answer as to whether or not the project will take flight.
During Deadline’s Contenders LA3C panel in December 2022, Kosinski spoke about the 2022 movie, its success, and some of those incredible, white-knuckled stunts before touching on the future of the franchise with an open-ended comment:
Is there another story that is compelling enough that we need to go back? It seems to me at the end of this film that Maverick has some gas left in the tank. He’s not settling down.
Although Maverick has “gas left in the tank,” as Kosinski put it, convincing Cruise to sign on for another Top Gun project could prove to be a difficult task. In an earlier interview with Polygon, the director revealed Cruise initially didn’t want to make a Top Gun sequel, though he came around after he heard the pitch for Maverick.
Jerry Bruckheimer Doesn’t Know What The Future Will Bring In Regards To Top Gun 3
Jerry Bruckheimer has had a major behind-the-scenes role with the Top Gun franchise since its beginnings nearly 40 years ago, and was right there with Tom Cruise in getting the 2022 sequel off the ground. But not even the legendary Hollywood producer, who has launched massive blockbusters and kickstarted the careers of countless A-listers, knows what’s in store for Top Gun 3, as he revealed during a lengthy August 2022 interview with RadioTimes.com, stating:
Well, we had been working for years to try to get the second one made – it took such a long time. And finally Joe [Kosinski, director] and Tom [Cruise] and McQ [writer and producer Christopher McQuarrie] came together, and we ended up with a movie that we love and our audiences love. … I can't tell you what the future is going to bring. If you'd asked me in '86, 'Do you think you'll have a sequel out in a few years?' I'd have said maybe. But it took 30-something years to do it!
Hopefully Bruckheimer’s comments don’t mean fans will have to wait three more decades to see Tom Cruise once again portray Maverick in Top Gun 3, but considering the dangerous stunts the actor continues to pull off for movies like Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, he would probably be up to the task.
Miles Teller Says He's Discussed Top Gun 3 With Tom Cruise
Miles Teller commented on his legendary co-star Tom Cruise's love of making movies as well as his admiration for the all-time great. From the sound of it, the two have stayed in touch since the completion of production several years ago -- or at the very least, it sounds like Miles Teller has brought up the subject of Top Gun 3. When speaking with ET Online at the American Century Championship celebrity golf tournament in July 2022, Teller opened up about those discussions:
That would be great, but that’s all up to TC [Tom Cruise]. It’s all up to Tom. I’ve been having some conversations with him about it. We’ll see.
Although Teller didn’t shed too much light on what he and Cruise discussed during those “conversations,” the actor did talk about a pitch he had for the franchise when sitting down with ScreenRant in May 2022, saying he was “trying to get a Top Gun: Rooster.”
Glen Powell’s Thoughts On What Would Need To Happen For Top Gun 3 To Work
Glen Powell became a big star in 2022 thanks in part to his scene-stealing portrayal of Jake "Hangman" Seresin, a brash, cocky, yet incredibly skilled pilot in Top Gun: Maverick. If a Top Gun 3 is to happen, it would surely involve his character, but the Devotion star did have some parameters that he thinks would need to be met when speaking with IndieWire in May 2022:
So, is there going to be a ‘Top Gun 3’? If we can figure out more crazy things to do with airplanes or a story that is compelling and emotional and adventurous and romantic and all those things like, I am sure Tom would be down. But that’s above my pay grade. Maybe you can pitch it to him when you talk to him!
This quote echoes comments Powell made earlier in the conversation where he explained “there’s no reason in just adding another movie” if it “doesn’t contribute or beat the original.” No pressure, right?
What Lewis Pullman Had To Say On The Subject Of A Potential Top Gun 3
Lewis Pullman follows in the footsteps of his father, Bill Pullman, 26 years after the latter gave his iconic Independence Day speech before strapping in a jet and taking on alien invaders. And while Pullman sounds like he would be down to revisit the role of Robert “Bob” Floyd, he told ComicBook.com in November 2022 that he was trying not to get his hopes up too much:
It's a dangerous path to go down because then I'll get my hopes up, you know? And I know how rare it is, like the likelihood of this movie even happening, it's so slim. I mean Tom kept saying this movie is like hitting a bullet with a bullet, like the amount of precision and accuracy that we have to have to make it a success, it's really like we better buckle down and really put our all into it.
Pullman’s cautious optimism is something that each of us could share as we think about the idea of Top Gun 3, though it doesn’t mean none of us want to see Tom Cruise return to one of his most beloved characters at least one more time.
Only time will tell when, or if, the world will get to see Top Gun 3, but for now we can at least watch Top Gun: Maverick streaming with a Paramount+ subscription.
