Top Gun 2 was thought to be on a fast track, until it was derailed by Tony Scott’s suicide in August 2012. Later it was reported that the producers’ energies had shifted to making a 3D re-release of the original Top Gun, which hasn’t happened yet either. But if this latest Jerry Bruckheimer interview is to be believed, the idea for Top Gun 2 isn’t dead yet.
Said Bruckheimer, in an interview with HuffingtonPost:
“We’ve been trying to get that movie made for 30 years, and I think we’re getting closer and closer,” Bruckheimer told Ricky Camilleri. “Don [Simpson] and I tried to develop something, we didn’t succeed. [Tom] Cruise took over, and he tried to develop something, and he didn’t succeed. Now we’re back at it.”
“The concept is, basically, are the pilots obsolete because of drones. Cruise is going to show them that they’re not obsolete. They’re here to stay,” Bruckheimer said. “It’s just getting to the starting place. Fortunately for Tom, he’s very busy, so you have to find a slot he can fit into and get a budget that Paramount feels they can make the picture.”
Well, it sounds like they’ve got a concept. Now all they need is a script, the star, a director, and a greenlight from the studio, and they’ll be all set.
I do love the idea that Tom Cruise is going to walk into his precious Top Gun program, only to find that all his super-cool, motorcycle-riding pilot badasses have been replaced by a bunch of nerds playing with drones on their computers. So then old guy Tom, who used to be the coolest dude in his class, is going to show them all how they used to do it back in the olden days – possibly because of the outbreak of a new Cold War (timely!). I hope there’s a lot of Tom Cruise spilling Mountain Dew on the motherboard as he tries to goad the new guys into a game of beach volleyball, and he keeps doing that weird bite thing and it’s all suuuuper homo-erotic.
“Hard deck my ass, we nailed that son of a bitch.”