Top Gun Maverick director Joseph Kosinski has been offering a few more hints about the planned Top Gun 3. More here.
When you direct a hit like Top Gun: Maverick, it must be an interesting conundrum to be asked to make another one. After all, on one hand you’ve created that rarest of breeds: a commercial juggernaut that has also achieved critical adoration. Why wouldn’t you follow that up? On the other hand though, you’ve given a beloved cinematic hero a proper third act sending off and in doing so, created a high bar for yourself. Why on earth would you even want to try and top that?
Director Joseph Kosinski has said before that if a Top Gun 3 does happen, the story has to be strong enough to justify the film’s existence. GIven that the Maverick character’s own personal quest seems fully played out now, where do you go next then? The filmmaker has been talking to GQ (via The Playlist) as he does the press rounds for F1 and offered just the tiniest nugget of information as to where the story might be headed.
“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. We’re thinking much bigger than…It’s a really existential crisis that Maverick has in this, and it’s much bigger than himself. It actually… I’m trying to describe it without giving anything away. 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.”
One of the reasons that made Top Gun: Maverick so watchable was because the intertwining of its title character and star, Tom Cruise became almost indistinguishable. Watching a careworn Maverick reckon with the choices made in his past as Cruise also arrives at a similar career crossroads is the kind of blending of movie star persona and storytelling that sometimes works really well… but isn’t always a trick that you can repeat.
Speaking of repeating, Kosinski also offered a dream pitch for a project that would see Cruise and F1 star Brad Pitt repeat their starry collaboration from 1994’s Interview With The Vampire. Pitching the idea for a Days Of Thunder/F1 crossover, Kosinski said, “right now, it’d be Cole Trickle [Cruise’s brilliantly-named Days of Thunder character]. We find out that he and Sonny Hayes [Pitt’s F1 character] have a past. They were rivals at some point, maybe crossed paths… I heard about this epic go-kart battle on Interview with the Vampire that Brad and Tom had, and who wouldn’t pay to see those two go head-to-head on the track?”
One small request? Can we complete the Interview With The Vampire reunion and bring Kirsten Dunst in on the action too, please? While this may seem like a throwaway bit of stunt pitching, it does make sense. Some out there continue to scratch their heads as to why a Days Of Thunder 2 would ever exist, but crossing the 90s film over with a contemporary racing movie would certainly add a veneer of modernity to the film. The combined star power of Cruise and Pitt wouldn’t hurt either.
Fede Alvarez’s public pitch for another Alien Vs Predator film was initially dismissed as as a gag by some, but now seems to have transformed into a fairly weighty rumour. Could this public pitch be headed in the same direction? Tom Cruise did come out to join Brad Pitt at the F1 premiere after all… we’ll bring you more on either of these projects as we hear it. F1 is currently in UK cinemas as we speak.
