Paramount is Making Top Gun 3 Because of Course They Are
Maverick won’t quit flying anytime soon. Puck News was the first to break the story that Paramount will produce another Top Gun movie, with Tom Cruise returning as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. Miles Teller and Glen Powell are expected to reprise their roles as Rooster and Hangman, respectively. Ehren Kruger is writing the script for Top Gun 3 (or whatever it’s ultimately called). Jerry Bruckheimer and David Ellison will produce once again, with Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski possibly at the helm. Puck says this could be Cruise’s next film after he finishes Mission: Impossible 8 (another Tom Cruise sequel at Paramount without an official title). Top Gun: Maverick was a massive hit for Paramount, raking in $1.496 billion on a $177 million budget.
Somebody wanted to reclaim the Cruise-centric news cycle from Warner Bros. I understand why Paramount is doing this; Maverick made too much money for them to leave Top Gun alone, especially if Tom Cruise is game to return. But on an artistic level, I wish they wouldn’t make another one. I liked Top Gun: Maverick a lot; it’s fun, has a good story, treats its hero with respect while allowing him to grow, and is a better movie than the original Top Gun. But where does the story go from here? I don’t think there’s anything left to say about Maverick; it feels like his arc is complete, and continuing his story could easily diminish what the last film accomplished. In terms of box office, I think it will probably be successful, but I doubt it’ll be the massive hit Maverick was. That was the right movie at the right time, slyly marketed as an anti-woke blockbuster in the vein of the old-fashioned crowd-pleasers from the 80s and 90s. Seeing it felt like sticking it to the rest of Hollywood, and while I wouldn’t call it anti-woke – more like simply not woke, which is all anyone wants – it got people to the theater, and it was as close to universally loved as movies get. It was an event, and I don’t think they’ll be able to recapture that feel with a third one.
