Top Gun 3 is officially in development with Tom Cruise to reprise his role as Pete Mitchell.
The franchise is back for another sequel following the huge success of 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick.
Paramount Pictures confirmed the project during its presentation at CinemaCon, where studio executives revealed that work on the next installment has already begun.
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who worked on both the original 1986 film and the 2022 sequel, will also be involved in the third movie’s production.
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“Top Gun 3 officially in development with a script underway, reuniting Tom Cruise and Jerry Bruckheimer,” Paramount film co-head Josh Greenstein said on Thursday (16 April).
Although specific plot details remain secret, the third film is likely to continue Maverick’s story with the younger pilots introduced in the previous film, which grossed nearly $1.5 billion worldwide, becoming one of the biggest films of 2022.
In the second film, Mitchell returns to train a new generation of elite Navy pilots for a dangerous mission destroying a heavily defended uranium facility.
Maverick confronts his past, including tension with Rooster, Goose’s son. After the mission succeeds, Maverick and Rooster make up and return safely.
“Yeah, we’re thinking and talking about many different stories and what could we do and what’s possible,” Cruise told Australia’s Today in 2025.
“It took me 35 years to figure out Top Gun: Maverick, so all of these things we’re working on, we’re discussing Days of Thunder and Top Gun: Maverick.”
“There’s numerous other films that we’re actively working on right now. I’m always shooting a film, prepping a film, posting a film,” he added.
“I just finished a film with Alejandro Iñárritu too, who did The Revenant, and we’ll be coming out with that.
“That was an extraordinary experience and [Christopher McQuarrie] and I are always working on several different films.”
Christopher McQuarrie, who co-wrote Top Gun: Maverick, previously teased the idea of a third film: “I already know what it is. It wasn’t hard. I thought it would be, and that’s a good place to walk from.
"You walk into the room, going, ‘Come on, what are we going to do?’ and Ehren Kruger pitched something, and we had one conversation about it. The framework is there, so it’s not hard to crack."
He added: "It was about coming up with an idea that — again — felt like a new challenge.
"Something that opens up the story in a way you just can’t let go. And I think the idea is so ambitious.
"That’s what’s exciting to me."
Topics: Tom Cruise, Top Gun, Film
Anish Vij