Director Joseph Kosinski said he only had 30 minutes to convince Tom Cruise to star in “Top Gun: Maverick.”
Revealing that Cruise “really didn’t want” to make a sequel to the 1986 box office hit, Kosinski met with the actor in Paris, where he only had half an hour to present the project.
“So I read the script, I had some ideas and Jerry [Bruckheimer] they liked these ideas. He said, “You know what, you have to go and present this directly to Tom,” Kosinski told Polygon.
“We flew to Paris, where Tom was filming Mission: Impossible, we had about half an hour of his time between setups.”
“It simply came to our notice then. But when I got there, I found out that Tom really didn’t want to make another Top Gun, “he said.
“It’s one of those moments as a director, you have one in each film, where you’re at the event to argue why this film should be made. I had 30 minutes to do that, “he said.
“When I got there, I found out that Tom really didn’t want to do another ‘Top Gun’.”
Josep Kosinski
Once Kosinski finished his presentation, he recalled that Cruise had picked up his phone and called the Paramount Pictures boss.
“We’re making another Top Gun,” Cruise told executives, according to Kosinski.
Kosinski said it was “quite impressive to see the power of a real movie star at the time.”
Kosinski said he only had 30 minutes to release “Top Gun: Maverick” on Cruise.FilmMagic
The director also revealed why the film is titled “Top Gun: Maverick” instead of a sequel to the first film.
“I just got the title, you know, which I think summed it all up,” he told Polygon. “We won’t call it ‘Top Gun 2,’ we’ll call it ‘Top Gun: Maverick.'”
He added that the film is a “character-based story, a drama with this giant action movie around it. And that to me was what a Top Gun movie is.”
Tom Cruise played Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in the 1986 film. © Paramount / Courtesy Everett
In its first three days in U.S. theaters, the long-running sequel earned about $ 124 million in ticket sales, Paramount Pictures said Sunday. Including international projections, its global total is $ 248 million.
The build-up has been equally striking, with fighter jet-adorned premieres on an aircraft carrier in San Diego and the Cannes Film Festival, where Cruise also received an honorary Palme d’Or and attended a royal premiere in London. . by Prince William and his wife Kate.