With the recent confirmation of the film's production, we highlight everything the cast and crew has said so far about the hotly anticipated sequel.
Glen Powell made headlines over the weekend after offering a hint at Top Gun 3 at the Sundance Film Festival. A sequel to Joseph Kosinski’s Top Gun: Maverick (2022) was recently confirmed, with the director returning alongside stars Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, and Powell. Maverick, a sequel to Tony Scott’s 1986 original Top Gun, grossed $1.5 billion worldwide and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.
Here’s everything we know about the forthcoming Top Gun 3.
Talk of a sequel has been floating around since Maverick’s massive Memorial Day ‘22 opening weekend. Just a few weeks after its release, Teller spoke to ET about his excitement for a sequel. "That would be great, but that's all up to TC," he said of his co-star. "It's all up to Tom. I've been having some conversations with him about it. We'll see."
In December of that year, Kosinski floated a teaser at Deadline's Contenders LA3C panel (via Screen Rant). “Is there another story that is compelling enough that we need to go back?” Kosinski asked rhetorically. “It seems to me at the end of this film that Maverick has some gas left in the tank. He’s not settling down.”
On January 12, 2024, news site Puck confirmed that Top Gun 3 was actively in the works, with Maverick screenwriter Ehren Kruger already hard at work on a first draft. Teller and Powell are expected to return alongside skilled airman Cruise. It’s unclear at this point if any other actors from Maverick will return. While no details of the plot have been disclosed, it’s thought this installment will centralize Teller and Powell with the intention of making them the series’ primary stars in future sequels.
This past weekend, Powell seemed to confirm his involvement during a panel for his upcoming film Hitman at Sundance. “People looked at me like I knew what was going on,” he said when asked about the sequel’s announcement, noting that he received a flurry of text messages begging for details.
“There is going to be some fun stuff being announced soon,” Powell revealed, “but it was confidential to me. I talk to Kosinski, Cruise, and [producer] Jerry [Bruckheimer] all the time. There is stuff happening and it sounds very exciting.”
As for a production start date, Powell knows as much as the fans do. “I don’t know when I’ll be going back,” he said, before teasing, “I’m sure there is a jet waiting for me sometime in the future.”
Top Gun 3 is unlikely to hit screens anytime soon. Cruise is committed to Mission: Impossible 8 for the rest of 2024, as is Kosinski to his Apple Studios race car drama, Formula 1, starring Brad Pitt and likewise scripted by Kruger. However, Puck said that Top Gun 3 is currently lined up as Cruise’s next project following M:I 8. That film is slated to hit theaters in 2025, which could put a potential Top Gun 3 release date anywhere from 2026 to 2028.
