During CinemaCon, Paramount/Skydance CEO David Ellison revealed to the audience that Top Gun 3 is officially in the works. Leading man Tom Cruise is set to reprise his iconic role as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, with Jerry Bruckheimer once again producing.
While Ellison may have been a tad premature in announcing the film, as it is still a long way from heading into production, we now have formal confirmation that a script is indeed being written. This, however, was not exactly a new development: Top Gun: Maverick co-writer Ehren Kruger was hired to pen the script two years ago, and Christopher McQuarrie is also believed to be involved, having revealed last year that he had cracked the sequel's story.
What was left out of that recent announcement, however, was the name of a director for the sequel. Joseph Kosinski helmed Top Gun: Maverick, but with him tied up with Miami Vice '85, it has been confirmed he won't be back for the sequel. Naturally, many fans assumed Cruise would turn to longtime collaborator Christopher McQuarrie to take the helm, but a new report from The InSneider claims that McQuarrie is also not in consideration after Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning and Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning both underperformed at the box office.
McQuarrie will instead tackle a Conan the Barbarian sequel with Arnold Schwarzenegger and is in the early stages of developing a Battlefield movie with Michael B. Jordan. While Top Gun 3 won't be the next time they work together, the two do have a number of other projects in the works, including an original action-thriller film with franchise potential, an original song-and-dance musical, and a film centered around Cruise's breakout Tropic Thunder character, Les Grossman.
With Kosinski and McQuarrie out of the running, who is actually up for the job? Sneider reports that the names being considered include Jon M. Chu (Wicked; G.I. Joe: Retaliation), Joachim Rønning (Tron: Ares; Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales), and the directing duo of Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah (Bad Boys: Ride or Die; Ms. Marvel). If any of them land the job, it would be their first time working with Cruise.
Now, as for whether Top Gun 3 will be Cruise's next film after Alejandro G. Iñárritu's Digger remains to be seen, especially considering everything else he has in various stages of development; however, it certainly seems like a high priority for the studio, which could certainly use a win after its recent acquisition of Warner Bros.