In the last few month it's seemed like Top Gun: Maverick, the sequel to the beloved 1986 original, has been right on track, with the film currently in production and featuring a stellar ensemble cast including Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Glen Powell, Jon Hamm, Ed Harris, Val Kilmer and more. Unfortunately, though, it appears that plans are being changed behind the scenes for the movie, as we'll now have to wait nearly a full extra year for the finished product to hit theaters - with countdown clocks needing to be recalculated for June 26, 2020.
News of this change comes from The Hollywood Reporter, which notes that it is one of many release date shifts being made by Paramount Pictures today. The original plan was to have Top Gun 2 ready for summer next year, but apparently the studio and/or the production is looking to let it have a bit of extra time in post-production... or is possibly looking to try and avoid potential competition.
It is noteworthy that July 2019 is set to be a month packed to the brim with very exciting movies. The month kicks off with Spider-Man: Far From Home - the first Marvel Cinematic Universe title that will follow the events of Avengers 4 - and the rest of the weeks are populated with an untitled Conjuring Universe spin-off; Disney's animated, live-action-looking The Lion King; and Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. Not wanting to be in the middle of all of that is probably a good call. Even if the film winds up being phenomenal it could be drowned out and possibly skipped over because of everything else that is going on.
Of course, late June 2020 isn't exactly free of tentpole features either. Warner Bros. alone has three big releases planned - including _The Six Billion Dollar Ma_n, an unspecified DC film, and Lin Manuel Miranda's In the Heights - but then there is also a Pixar title and a Fox/Marvel movie. In this day and age it's pretty impossible to fully escape competition in the summer months, but apparently Paramount thinks it will have a better chance later rather than sooner.
Joseph Kosinski is directing Top Gun: Maverick, which will catch up with one of Tom Cruise's most iconic characters more than 30 years after his original big screen introduction. Plot details are being kept under wraps for now, but the project has some talented scribes attached, including Peter Craig (The Town), Justin Marks (The Jungle Book), and Eric Warren (American Hustle). Thanks to this release date delay, it will probably be a while before we actually get to see any official footage from the studio, but we'll be on the hunt for more details about his delay and what we can expect from the movie.
