If all went as planned, 2020 would have been the second Summer Of Top Gun, 34 years after the original. And while there’s so much to be excited about in the arrival of Top Gun: Maverick now later this year – from the dizzying-looking aerial action sequences to more sunset beach sports – it also brings Tom Cruise back to screen in one of his most beloved roles: Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell. As its title indicates, the sequel will find Cruise donning the Maverick helmet once more to train a new generation of recruits – and according to director Joseph Kosinski, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing (or, soaring?) for him in the intervening years.
“In so many ways he’s still the guy that we remember from the first Top Gun,” the director explains to Empire in the Big-Screen Preview issue. “He keeps that old Ninja under a tarp in the hangar and still wears those Ray-Ban aviators. He’s the best at what he does, and he’s given his whole life to aviation. But that has come as a personal cost, and Maverick has to confront some things from his past and reconcile with them. It’s a rite-of-passage story, much like the first film was. But this is a man now at a different stage of life life.”
Joining Cruise on screen will be Miles Teller, playing trainee ‘Rooster’, the son of the original film’s fallen hero Nick ‘Goose’ Bradshaw, among a gaggle of wannabe pilots. Plus, Val Kilmer is on board to reprise the role of ‘Iceman’ from the original. And with all the technological advances of the past three and a half decades, the flight sequences are set to be dazzling – with Kosinski promising Empire an “authentic, visceral, intense experience”.
Read Empire’s full Top Gun: Maverick story in the Big-Screen Preview issue, out on Thursday 9 July. Top Gun: Maverick is currently expected to arrive in UK cinemas from 23 December.