Caffeinated Clint
The UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television last week kicked of The Heat Is On, a film festival saluting the works of producer Jerry Bruckheimer. First cab off the rank was Bruckheimer & (the late) Don Simpson’s “Top Gun”. Cool festival. Cool idea. Love to be there.
Afterwards, Bruckheimer gave Deadline a small update on the long-gestating “Top Gun” sequel – which Tom Cruise is expected to reprise his Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell for. And, fitting with most news over the course of the past year on the sequel, there’s little to tell.
And as for the sequel to tonight’s film, so far that’s still in very early development – Bruckheimer confirmed that screenwriter Justin Marks has only recently started on the script. He did however talk at length about the original film’s impact. “It’s a special film because of the fact that it highlights the military,” he says. “It shows the best and the brightest of our country, the kids who go to war to protect our shores, to protect our freedoms and unfortunately sometimes have to give up their lives for our country. That is something where we inspired a lot of kids to join the military, through that movie. That’s kind of a good thing — we want the best and brightest out there.” “Hopefully,” he continued, “it’ll be one of those movies that gets in the time capsule, as part of what was going on in the ‘80s when the movie was released.”
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight (via NY Daily News), Bruckheimer confirmed that Cruise is definitely involved in the sequel.
“Yeah, of course!” Bruckheimer responded when asked if the “Mission : Impossible” star was coming back. “You don’t make Top Gun without Tom Cruise!” he added.
The sequel to “Top Gun” will reportedly fix on the military’s use of drones – which has essentially put a lot of pilots out of work, I’m guessing? No doubt ‘Maverick’ will be teaching a class comprising of both human and robot.
