Top Gun 3 officially confirmed after huge success of Maverick – and Tom Cruise's future with franchise revealed
Jerry Bruckheimer will also be returning as producer on the next entry – but there's been no word on who will direct.
A third Top Gun movie is officially in the works – and unsurprisingly, Tom Cruise will once again be back as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell.
The news was confirmed by Paramount during their presentation at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, while it was also revealed that veteran producer Jerry Bruckheimer is returning.
It's not yet clear who will be directing this next instalment, with Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski already attached to several other upcoming projects, including a Miami Vice remake and an untitled UFO conspiracy thriller.
However, Mission: Impossible director and frequent Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie – who had a screenplay credit on the previous film along with Ehren Kruger and Eric Warren Singer – was previously revealed to be working on the script for the third entry.
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Last May, McQuarrie explained during an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast with Josh Horowitz that the story for the next film was "already in the bag".
He explained: “It wasn’t hard. I thought it would be, and that’s a good place to go from is you walk into the room going, ‘Come on, what are we going to do?’ and Ehren Kruger pitched something and I went, ‘Mhm actually,’ and we had one conversation about it and the framework is there.
"So, no, it’s not hard to crack. The truth of the matter is, none of these are hard to crack.”
Of course, he gave nothing away about what that story would be, and Paramount's CinemaCon presentation also provided no further plot details – or indeed any new information beyond officially announcing the film and confirming the returns of Cruise and Bruckheimer.
It is unclear which other stars from the previous instalment might return, with that film having introduced a raft of new characters, including Miles Teller as Rooster – the son of Maverick's late best friend Goose – and Jennifer Connelly as love interest Penny.
Other stars who appeared as the younger generation of pilots included Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, Monica Barbaro, Jay Ellis, Danny Ramirez and Greg Tarzan Davis, many of whom's careers have continued to rise since.
Top Gun: Maverick was released in 2022, 36 years after the original Top Gun film, and became a huge box office sensation as well as attracting very positive reviews and even bagging a nomination for best picture at the Oscars.
It will certainly be interesting to see if this third entry builds on that success – we'll be looking out for any further updates.
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Authors
Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.
