“They showed me 15 minutes of footage and I left the trailer with my chin on the ground. I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is so cool!’ It’s been a long shoot – we’ve gone since October – but it’s going to be very cool.”

After decades of wondering what happened next to Maverick, a Top Gun sequel was officially confirmed in 2015. In a year’s time, the long-awaited Top Gun 2, Top Gun: Maverick, will make its way into theaters. 

First released in 1986, Top Gun, which featured the F-14 Tomcat, then the U.S. Navy’s premier fighter, immediately became a hit and launched more than a few careers. The movie starred Tom Cruise as Maverick, a cocky but talented F-14 driver and one of only a few U.S. Naval Aviators to be sent to Topgun. Maverick has to prove himself, no matter how talented he is, to give his superiors enough confidence to keep him in the air. Joined by his Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) and close friend, Goose (Anthony Edwards), and fellow confident, talented Tomcat pilot Iceman (Val Kilmer), Maverick’s time spent training is both a serious wake-up call about the exhilaration and danger of being a U.S. Naval Aviator.

(This first appeared in June 2019.)

As told by Screen Rant, Top Gun: Maverick, which officially began filming early in summer 2019, will no doubt recreate the thrills of the first film while introducing a new class of recruits to train up in the modern era. 

In 2017, new director Joseph Kosinski commented on the fact Top Gun: Maverick would have to address how the Navy has evolved in the last 30-plus years and how its involvement in modern, foreign wars has changed how the institution trains its recruits and prepares them for what lies ahead:

“The Navy is very different now than it was in 1986. Back then, they hadn’t been in any war for 15 or 20 years at that point. The tone of that movie and what those guys were doing was very different. Now, here in 2017, the Navy’s been at war for 20 years. It’s just a different world now, so you can’t remake the first movie. It has to adapt. That being said, I certainly want to recreate the experience of that movie, which gives you a front-seat into the world of Naval aviation and what it’s like to be in a fighter jet. The approach is going to be appropriate for the times we live in.”

Last Month Jon Hamm, who is also part of the cast, said that Top Gun: Maverick footage left him with his “chin on the ground.”

“It’s very cool – the technology involved with putting cameras in F-18 Super Hornets is pretty cool. I’m excited for people to see it,” he said.

“They showed me 15 minutes of footage and I left the trailer with my chin on the ground. I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is so cool!’ It’s been a long shoot – we’ve gone since October – but it’s going to be very cool.”

In February Scientology Money Project claimed that USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) crew had been ordered to not look at Tom Cruise or to talk to him while filming Top Gun Sequel aboard the US Navy Nimitz Class aircraft carrier.

A Theodore Roosevelt crew member revealed that Tom Cruise told the crew members on the aircraft carrier not to look at or touch him. However the person asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

“He angered USS Theodore crew while filming [the ‘Top Gun’ sequel],” the crew member pointed out on Feb. 17, 2019. They said that Cruise was acting “very arrogant.”

A U.S. Navy master chief in fact explained that the aircraft carrier crew was directed to “respect” Cruise and his crew during the movie’s filming. The master chief added that he doesn’t believe this was an issue.

However he pointed out that his service “does not tolerate any disrespect to its members” and the Navy “wouldn’t allow” Cruise to treat staff poorly.

Navy escorts who accompanied Cruise during the shoot said, “At no time did Tom Cruise say to a sailor, ‘Do not look at me. Do not touch me.’”

On Feb. 14, 2019 F-14A Tomcat BuNo 159631 was lifted aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) aircraft carrier in San Diego for Top Gun: Maverick production.

Besides the F-14 Tomcat, Top Gun: Maverick will likely feature the Navy’s new Lockheed Martin F-35C Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters alongside older Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornets.

The movie was assigned a theatrical release date of Jul. 12, 2019 last year, but on September Paramount announced that had delayed the sequel nearly an entire year, assigning it a new release date of Jun. 26, 2020.

Maverick’s rides for Top Gun sequel will be a cool special painted F/A-18F Super Hornet (which experienced a mid-air issue while it was flying with Tom Cruise on board in September) and a new motorcycle that Tom Cruise already drove around airfield (as he did on a Kawasaki Ninja in the 1986 original) as shown in first pictures from Top Gun: Maverick set.

Tom Cruise teased the start of filming on the long-awaited Top Gun sequel on May 31, 2018with a tweet featuring an image of an older Capt. Pete Mitchell standing in a flight suit with his famous HGU-33 helmet (that wore to fly his F-14A Tomcat) in hand.

This first appeared in Aviation Geek Club here. 

Image: Wikimedia