Top Gun 3 is coming, and Tom Cruise will once again don the helmet as Maverick, according to director Joseph Kosinski.
Kosinski is currently doing the interview rounds to support F1, which has just come out in cinemas. And GQ managed to tease a few words on Top Gun 3 out of the director.
“I think we've found a way to do it, not only in the scale of what we're proposing, but the idea itself of the story we're telling,” Kosinski says.
“There's still more story to tell for him,” is his take on why Tom Cruise is returning for the film. “There's one last ride. So we're working on it now.”
“It's an existential question that Maverick has to deal with, that would make Maverick feel small, I think, as a movie, compared to what we're talking about.”
So what’s Top Gun 3 actually about? We’re as clueless as we were before Kosinski started talking, to be honest. But we are hyped.
Kosinski directed Top Gun: Maverick as well as F1. But he also has a long history in blockbuster action, having directed 2010’s TRON: Legacy and Oblivion, which also starred Tom Cruise. These guys go way back.
Top Gun 3 is no secret. Its development was confirmed in 2023, and Tom Cruise mentioned he was working on the project back in May.
Kosinski has also teased the idea of bringing Tom Cruise in for a sequel to F1, and making it a crossover with the Days of Thunder franchise. Cruise starred in 1990's Days of Thunder, one of the best racing car movies, while Brad Pitt plays an (initially) washed up former racing star Sonny Hayes in F1. The links aren't that tough to make.
But will F1 actually bring in the money to make a sequel worthwhile? It’s currently forecast to rake-in more then $100 million over its opening weekend, but some estimates suggest its production budget was north of $300 million. That would make it one of the most expensive movies ever produced, although producer Jerry Bruckheimer says those higher estimates are “out of whack."
It’s also not beat Top Gun: Maverick, which made $126 million in its opening weekend, in the US alone. The film went on to make a massive $1.49 billion.
F1 is worth watching on the big screen but, as an Apple movie, it will also end up on Apple TV+ before too long.
