K.T Simpson
You didn’t have to have Superman’s sight to see the success of “Top Gun : Maverick” coming a mile away but not even Paramount predicted the Tom Cruise starring blockbuster would do the kind of numbers it has this past weekend.
In the U.S, the Joseph Kosinski directed actioner beat the Memorial Day opening 4-day record at the domestic box office, snaring $156M. That’s the best opener ever for Cruise – whose previous hits included “Mission : Impossible – Fallout” and “Days of Thunder” – who managed to get 11.6 M residents of the United States in theater seats for the film. A lot of that audience was older-skewed too, suggesting the king of the blockbuster has managed to entice a segment back to ‘the movies’ that had preferred to watch films at home.
A “Top Gun” sequel had been in the works for the better part of a decade, with the director of the 1986 original, Tony Scott originally attached to direct. After Scott’s tragic passing, “Oblivion” director Joseph Kosinski took the reins on the project, but it still took a few years to get together.
Will a third “Top Gun” take just as long?
Paramount are said to be, naturally, very keen to do another film in the series but producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Cruise himself are playing coy as to whether they’re eyeing another sequel.
“Let’s ride this wave,” Bruckheimer tells Deadline, remaining non-committal on a third chapter and echoing similar comments by Cruise.
Co-star Miles Teller remains a little more optimistic – and tells Screen Rant he’s even pitched the studio his take.
“I’m trying to get a Top Gun: Rooster. I’ve been pitching it. We’ll see what happens. I don’t know. I think it’s interesting. Obviously, everybody was begging Tom to do a sequel right after the first one came out. I think this movie puts a nice bow on it; it really kind of wraps it up, but we’ll see. I’m available.”
Speaking to Indiewire, actor Glenn Powell – who plays ‘Hangman’ in the film – said he doesn’t expect Cruise will want to do another one unless he can make it better than “Top Gun : Maverick”.
“I think Tom, basically, his sort of motto at the beginning of this thing is, if you can’t beat the earlier movies, there’s no reason in doing it at all. There’s no reason in just adding another movie to the filmography of the world, if it doesn’t contribute or beat the original.”
Other studios, like Sony, meanwhile seem to be keen on reviving some of their flyboy franchises. There’s talk of an “Iron Eagle” sequel, for one. And if the success of the original “Top Gun” in 1986 proved anything, there’ll be a dozen copycat films put into commission in the coming months. After the Tony Scott-directed blockbuster clocked a gazillion bucks at the box-office back in the day, films like “Firebirds”, “Flight of the Intruder”, “Navy Seals”, “Memphis Belle” and Tom Cruise starrer “Days of Thunder” (nicknamed ‘Top Gun in cars’ at the time) were suddenly greenlit.
