There have been rumors for years that a Top Gun 2 has been in perpetual development. We know there have been strong story ideas. We know Tom Cruise and Jerry Bruckheimer are interested in making the movie if all the pieces come together. Now we’ve received confirmation that the script for the movie is making the rounds. Val Kilmer says he’s on board, but it’s the other people he says are involved that really got our attention.
UPDATE: Val Klimer has returned to social media to explain that Gene Hackman and Francis Coppola are examples of things people say "yes" to, but they are not involved in Gun 2. Damn.
FROM EARLIER: In a post to Facebook, Kilmer says he didn’t even bother to read the script before accepting it, because it’s Top Gun and it sounds like he’s just as excited as fans are that he’ll be able to get into the cockpit again. However, Kilmer also says there are two other reasons that he instantly said yes to the part. One is that Gene Hackman will be one of his co-stars, the other is that Francis Ford Coppola will be directing in place of the late Tony Scott.
These additional names have us scratching our heads more than a little here. Hackman hasn’t filmed a movie since 2004. At 85 years old, he’s long past the age where he’s going to play the grizzled veteran fighter pilot character that he would have been fantastic as. We assumed that sort of role would be played by Cruise this time around, anyway. Coppola has also previously stated that he’s pretty much done making big studio pictures, and this without any shadow of a doubt is going to qualify as a big-budget studio movie.
This honestly feel more like Val Kilmer is trolling his fans than actually releasing news, but at the same time, we can’t figure why he would be doing that. If he’s saying this, it must be true, right? Right? We want to believe all this. We want like hell to believe all this. We’re having real trouble.
I just got offered #topgun2 - not often you get to say "yes" without reading the script..."It's starring Gene...Posted by Val Kilmer on Monday, November 16, 2015
Tom Cruise has stated as recently as this past summer that he’s interested in making a sequel to the 80’s action movie and an idea has been making the rounds that involves the conflict between manned fighter jets and unmanned drone combat. If we were putting money down, we’d bet that Top Gun 2 will likely happen, and sooner rather than later, but this has just come out of left field.
If this is all confirmed we’ll be as excited as anybody. Seeing Gene Hackman again on screen would be a joy and we can’t even imagine what fighter jet choreography directed by Francis Ford Coppola would look like, but we can’t wait to find out.
