Tom Cruise is reportedly set to get back behind the wheel in a sequel to 1990’s Days Of Thunder. More details within.
Legacy sequels tend to be a mixed bag, though Top Gun: Maverick got the balance between new and nostalgia just right. The script develops Maverick in a way that is respectful to the original film, and the sweeping aerial cinematography makes the flying sequences look magnificent.
While Tom Cruise has been busy with the next instalment of the long running Mission Impossible franchise for some time, he’s now reportedly getting round to developing a legacy sequel to 1990’s Days of Thunder for Paramount. According to Deadline, Cruise is in talks to star, but there are currently no other creatives attached. Scott and Towne have both since passed away.
Days Of Thunder saw director Tony Scott applied the same style he brought to the flying sequences in 1986’s Top Gun to create some spectacular racing sequences four years later. Scott directed the film from a script by Chinatown writer Robert Towne, who co-wrote the story with Tom Cruise.
Cruise reunited with producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, two of the most successful film producers in history, to tell the story of racer Cole Trickle, recruited by NASCAR to race in their Cup Series. He soon develops a rivalry with fellow racer Rowdy Burns, played by Michael Rooker, and strikes up a relationship with Dr Claire Lewicki, played by Nicole Kidman. The cast also includes Cary Elwes, Robert Duvall, Randy Quaid and John C Reilly.
Unlike Top Gun, however, Days Of Thunder wasn’t a huge hit – its budget was four times the size of that earlier plane and made less than half of its profits.
What’s slightly puzzling is that Days Of Thunder producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s already working on another big-budget car movie – F1, directed by Top Gun: Maverick's Joseph Kosinski. With that film, starring Brad Pitt and Damson Idris, reportedly costing about $300m to bring to the screen, its success or failure next June could well affect Paramount’s enthusiasm for investing in a Days Of Thunder sequel.
Cruise will next be seen on the big screen in the eighth Mission Impossible film, which previously had the subtitle Dead Reckoning Part Two, though that has now been removed and the title has not been confirmed. The film will be released in UK cinemas on the 23rd May 2025.
If sequels to All The Right Moves, Endless Love or Legend are also announced, we’ll be sure to let you know.
