Top Gun fans can rejoice, with screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie confirming that the story for the upcoming third film is “already in the bag”.
Following the overwhelming critical and commercial success of 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, a third film in the series was promptly greenlit, with the development continuing in the ensuing years.
McQuarrie, who co-wrote Maverick’s screenplay alongside Ehren Kruger and Eric Warren Singer, appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast to provide an update on the project.
“It [the story] is already in the bag,” shared McQuarrie, who also served as a producer on Maverick. “It wasn’t hard. I thought it would be, and that’s a good place to go from as you walk into the room going, ‘Come on, what are we going to do?’
“Ehren Kruger pitched something and I went, ‘Mhm actually,’ and we had one conversation about it and the framework is there. So, no, it’s not hard to crack. The truth of the matter is, none of these are hard to crack.
Paramount
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“As you start to execute it [and] interrogate it, you start [to think] why these movies are made the way they are. It’s not the action, it’s not even the level of or intensity of or the scope and scale of the action [or] the engineering around the action, it’s none of those things – it’s the emotion.”
McQuarrie’s comments come after lead star Tom Cruise offered a similarly positive update on the project, with the actor also sharing that he was also working on a legacy sequel to 1990’s Days of Thunder.
Bryan Bedder//Getty Images
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“We’re thinking and talking about many different stories and what could we do and what’s possible,” said Cruise. “It took me 35 years to figure out Top Gun: Maverick… we’re discussing [sequels to] Days of Thunder and Top Gun: Maverick.”
McQuarrie and Cruise are of course currently on the press tour for the latest collaboration, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which sees Ethan Hunt (Cruise) embark on a journey to save the world from the clutches of The Entity.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is in cinemas now.
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Reporter, Digital Spy George is a freelance writer who specialises in Movies and TV. After graduating with a degree in Film Studies and Journalism from De Montfort University, in which he analysed the early works of Richard Linklater for his dissertation, he wrote for several websites for GRV Media. His film tastes vary from blockbusters like Mission: Impossible and John Wick to international directors such as Paolo Sorrentino and Hirokazu Kore-eda, and has attended both the London and Berlin film festivals.