From surprise trailer to tragic delays, everything we know about the Top Gun sequel

Tom Cruise is back on his bike in the long-awaited sequel to Top Gun
Tom Cruise is back on his bike in the long-awaited sequel to Top Gun

Top Gun: Maverick, the long-awaited sequel to the 1986 box-office smash, is finally in post-production. On Thursday Cruise surprised Comic-Con fans with an appearance and a look at the exhilarating first trailer. 

Details of the plot are still under wraps, but a few surprising facts have already been announced. Here's everything we know about it so far.

It will involve drone warfare

A lot has changed in the military in the decades since the original Top Gun – and according to producer David Ellison, the film will reflect that.

"When you look at the world of dogfighting, what’s interesting about it is that it’s not a world that exists to the same degree when the original movie came out," Ellison told reporters in 2015.

"This world has not been explored. It is very much a world we live in today where it’s drone technology, and fifth generation fighters are [...] what the United States Navy is calling the last man-made fighter that we’re actually going to produce. So it’s really exploring the end of an era of dogfighting".

In the trailer, Ed Harris alludes to how drones will take humans out of flight warfare: "The end is inevitable, Maverick, your kind is headed for extinction." Maverick responds: "Maybe so, sir, but not today."

It's likely to see Maverick go back to school – as a teacher

One widely-rumoured plotline would see Maverick, formerly the most rebellious recruit at the Top Gun Naval Fighter Weapons School, return there to train a new generation of pilots. “The idea is Maverick is at the Top Gun school as an instructor – and this time it is he who has to deal with a cocky new female pilot," an anonymous source told the Sun

It's not just Maverick who's coming back

There were rumours that Kelly McGillis would be returning as Maverick's love-interest Charlotte Blackwood, but according to the trailer, this doesn't seem to have worked out. Instead, Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly will take on the female lead role. She's described as a single mom who owns a bar near the base. Cruise has confirmed this casting, promising Connelly will be "amazing" in the movie.

One important off-screen talent will also be returning: Harold Faltermeyer, the German composer behind the original film's rock-guitar score.

New cast members include Mad Men's Jon Hamm as a hardened Vice Admiral and Ed Harris as an antagonistic commanding officer. GLOW star Bashir Salahuddin is also set to star although details of his role are yet to be announced. 

Regardless of who the supporting players are, though, Ellison is clear that the film belongs to Cruise: “There is an amazing role for Maverick in the movie and there is no Top Gun without Maverick, and it is going to be Maverick playing Maverick," he has said. In other words, expect a lot of Maverick.

Iceman is in the movie, but it is unclear who will play him

Maverick's adversary, Iceman, will be back. Val Kilmer hinted on Facebook that we'll see a replay of the iconic beach volleyball game. "I can’t comment on the screenplay, but we all know what we want to see!" Kilmer wrote. It might have been a joke, but the trailer does show an impressively pumped up Cruise playing volleyball.

But there is no sight of the co-star in the trailer. Glenn Powell does, however, appear with Iceman style white-blonde hair, maybe he will be the one taking on the role?

Miles Teller will star as Goose's son and Maverick's newest protege

Paramount has confirmed that Miles Teller (Whiplash), will star as the son of Goose, who died in the 1986 drama, and new protege of his father's former co-pilot, Maverick. Previously, it was rumoured that Nicholas Hoult and Glen Powell were also testing for the role, but Teller confirmed that he had scored the role to his Twitter followers. In the trailer, we see Teller playing the piano just like his father and also in an argument with another trainee. Looks as though he has Maverick's bad temper.

It's out in cinemas in 2020

The film was set for release in the US on July 12, 2019, but in August 2018 that release date was unexpectedly pushed back a year to June 26, 2020. Deadline Hollywood reports that the additional time was needed to work on the film's ambitious flight sequences.

It has had a long, difficult production journey

It has taken a lot of false starts to get this plane in the air. The original film's director, Tony Scott, was approached about reviving Top Gun all the way back in 2010, and sounded enthusiastic about reinventing it. "This world fascinated me, because it's so different from what it was originally," he said at the time. "But I don't want to do a remake... I want to do a new movie."

But those plans ended in tragedy when Scott took his own life in 2012. However, Top Gun producer Jerry Bruckheimer remained devoted to the project. "For 30 years we've been trying to make a sequel and we're not going to stop," he said in 2014. As he put it in another interview, "Losing Tony slowed us down, but hopefully, we can pick up speed again."

They soon did, although it took a long while to settle on a screenwriter. Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects), and Peter Craig (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay) were both reportedly attached to the project at different times, but writing duties finally went to Justin Marks, best known for his work on Disney's recent remake of The Jungle Book.

Replacing Scott as director is Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy) who previously worked with Cruise on the disappointing 2013 sci-fi movie Oblivion.

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