There’s no doubt about it: Joseph Kosinski Top Gun: Maverick is a phenomenal success. After garnering waves of positive buzz before release, the film enjoyed the most successful opening weekend of any title in Tom Cruise’s filmography, and since then has become one of only two blockbusters to have grossed over $1 billion at the box office since. the beginning of the pandemic (the other title being that of Jon Watts Spider-Man: No Coming Home).
Looking at this success, one might wonder why it took 36 years for the sequel to be made, and Tom Cruise recently explained that the delay was due to a serious dedication to making the film as great as possible – both in terms of history and revolution. cinematography.
Speaking to BBC Radio 1, Tom Cruise recently explained that Paramount Pictures wanted a Top Gun 2 even before the Tony Scott-directed original was released in 1986, but it wasn’t something Cruise wanted to get involved in as his career was blossoming rapidly. He chose to wait to make a sequel, which meant waiting for the right story to come along, and according to the actor, he’s heard a number of “terrible” pitches over the years. He told the interviewer,
Just for years, I was like, ‘How can I do this? What is it?’… Talking about history and structure for years. People come up with ideas that are terrible – that just haven’t worked out at all, in any way. And I was just like, ‘It’s never gonna work. I am not interested.
Eventually, enough time had passed for Tom Cruise to realize that he either had to commit to Top Gun: Maverick or move on – and he opted for the former. Unfortunately, the stress of doing it right kept him awake at night, even as the studio gave him the green light to do whatever he wanted. Said Cruise,
There were enough pieces in place and I thought if I ever had to do it, it would be now. I’ll be lying there at night, okay. I would sit, I would write, I would say to myself, “If I did this…” And I spent years formulating the process by which I would think of making this film. ‘Cause they’re like, ‘Go ahead, man. You are Tom. Good; were in.’ And I was like, ‘No, no, there’s a whole thing.’
A big part of making sure Top Gun: Maverick would satisfy Tom Cruise’s ambitions was to not only tell a proper story for the titular character, but also to use modern cinematic technology to ensure that this film would be unlike anything audiences had ever seen on the big screen. Cruise explained that those kinds of opportunities didn’t exist in the making of the original – and that he was quietly developing ideas for what the sequel could be while working on movies like Doug Liman’s. American made and Christopher McQuarrie Mission: Impossible – Fallout (both feature spectacular aerial action). Said Cruise,
When I did the first one, I flew. I didn’t really have a warm-up and I knew I wanted the scale of the movie to be bigger. So how do I educate the studio, the filmmakers, the actors on what I wanted to accomplish? And you can see in American Made and [Mission: Impossible -] Fallout that I develop the technology, I think about it.
Behind the scenes of Top Gun: Maverick probably took longer than Paramount Pictures execs wanted, but the studio must be thrilled with the results. To date, according to The Numbers, the blockbuster has grossed $1.12 billion at the global box office, making it the biggest movie hit the world has seen in 2022.
With the film still high in the weekly box office rankings, Top Gun: Maverick is still playing in thousands of venues across the country, and if you haven’t seen it already, you should definitely do so before it leaves the big screen (and if you need more convincing, you can read CinemaBlend’s Top Gun: Maverick exam).