I’ve got a collection of new photos to share with you today for director Joseph Kosinski’s highly anticipated film Top Gun: Maverick. This is one of my most anticipated movies of the year and I can’t wait to see Tom Cruise back in action as Maverick and I’m curious to see who exactly the story plays out.
In the film, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell returns to flight school to show a group of younger pilots how to really kick-ass as a pilot. In a report from EW, it’s revealed that unlike the young pilots in the original film, “the trainees in Maverick are all previous graduates of the Top Gun school (a.k.a. the United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program).”
The director explains the pilots in the original film were entering the Top Gun school for the first time, “In our film, these are all Top Gun graduates who are coming back for a special training detachment — which is another aspect of Top Gun where they can go back for specialized training after they’ve already graduated. They’re at a different level of experience than in the first film.”
Obviously, none of them are at the level of experience as Maverick is. When talking about the training that the actors had to go through to shoot this movie, Kosinski said:
“The experience is thrilling but very physically grueling. The maneuvers that we were putting them through to tell this story were not something that you can just jump in and do. They all had to go through months of aerial training. We put them through a training course that Tom actually designed himself. He’s a licensed aerobatic pilot, and he was thrown into deep end when he did the first Top Gun without any training. So he knew that they would need to kind of work up to that level. So they started in Cessnas and then worked their way up aerobatic airplanes then into small single-engine jets before they were in the Super Hornet. Occasionally it made some of the actors sick and that even happens to experienced fighter pilots.
“There’s no crew up there. I’m not up there with him, there’s no cinematographer, no hair and makeup. They are responsible for every aspect of the filmmaking process when they’re up in those airplanes.”
When talking about the most extreme sequence we saw in the trailer featuring Maverick flying across the desert at a crazy low altitude, the filmmaker said:
“For the sequence where Tom got to do some extreme low-altitude flying in this film, we had to get special permission from the Navy to do it. It was one of the most extreme aerial sequences that we could come up with. Also, getting to do a real launch off a carrier and a real landing on a carrier — no one else has been able to ever do that in a movie before. Tom got to fulfill every kind of aviation dream that he had.”
I can’t help but think that would make director Michael Bay jealous.
Miles Teller takes on the role of Lt. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, who is son of the Goose from the original film. It’s explained that the relationship between Rooster and Maverick is at the heart of the film:
“The relationship between Maverick and Rooster really forms the emotional core and spine of the film. It was really one the key reasons Tom felt like that now this is the time to go back and do this.”
It’s also once again confirmed that Val Kilmer will return as Iceman. We haven’t seen him yet, but he’s in the movie, but Kosinski doesn’t want to reveal how he will be utilized in the story. All he would say is:
“The rivalry and relationship between Iceman and Maverick is one of those things that makes that first film so iconic. It’s a relationship that is important to the Top Gun franchise and as a fan I would want to see how it’s evolved.”
Top Gun: Maverick will be released on June 26, 2020. The photos below feature Danny Ramirez as Fanboy, Glenn Powell as Hangman, Jay Ellis as Payback, Miles Teller as Rooster, Monica Barbaro as Phoenix, and Lewis Pullman as Bob.
