The biggest surprise of the summer came by way of Top Gun: Maverick, a sequel that came 36 years after its predecessor.
Given the time that has passed since the release of 1986's Top Gun, and its attendant reputation as an outdated, inadvertently camp cultural object (and/or product of hawkish U.S. propaganda), nobody forecast Maverick's mid-year dominance. We all surely feel deeply silly in retrospect: let us never again doubt, even in this alleged new Hollywood era where the leading man is going the way of the Dodo, the afterburner effect of Tom Cruise, nor the appeal of thrills and physically crafted spills.
We're half a year on from its swanky premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, now, and Mav-mania has secured audiences across the globe by the bits. But when did the sequel chatter begin? How much has Tom Cruise, a spritely twenty-something when the original Top Gun came out, changed over the decades? And are we getting a threequel? As the mega-hit soars onto home release, GQ chatted over all of this and more with Maverick's producer Jerry Bruckheimer.
GQ: It's been a busy summer. You've been talking about Top Gun: Maverick… a lot.
Jerry Bruckheimer: A lot. We just did a bunch of, you know — we went to Cannes [Film Festival], we went to London, we went to Tokyo. We went to Seoul, Korea. Then, of course, we had the United States too, so it's been a worldwide tour. Which Tom's great at, he loves doing it. Some actors say, I’m an actor, eh… But Tom's the opposite. He really embraces the audience and his fans across the world.
Cannes was the second time I saw Maverick, actually. I'd seen it in England two weeks prior, and loved it. But how especially fantastic it was to see it with a full, film festival audience.
I can't tell you how many people I've run into who've told me, you know, ‘I’ve seen it twice,' ‘I’ve seen it three times.' It's a movie that throws you back to the original, first of all. But it also shows you that when you make a movie that an audience really engages with, they have so much more joy when they walk out than when they walked in. That's what I try to do. I don't always do it. But I try.
I think it's such a rarity in Hollywood cinema, not least in the past decade or so — you know, we've seen the emergence of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The American film industry has become more homogeneous. Mid-budget crowdpleasers like the first Top Gun are fewer and far between.
Well, it was really an expensive movie at the time. I think we segmented it into three parts: we did a ground story for four weeks, then we took ‘em on a carrier, then we did the aerials. Then we did the gimbal work — because all the flying that we did with the actors, when we had cameras in the cockpit, they all threw up. And we couldn’t use anything. We used maybe a few pieces with Tom, and that was it. So this time [with Maverick], Tom said, ‘We’ve got to train everybody.' It's a four-month training programme. They learned how to sustain the G forces.
But the success of the movie is always about the characters in the story, the emotion. That's it. Because we took you on a real emotional ride through these characters. And that's what audiences want — they want to walk into that dark theatre, give up, and say, Let me be part of this world. That's why I got into the movie business.
You're on $1.48 billion. That's as of checking this morning. Critics love it. It's been a huge surprise — it certainly surprised me…
And the audiences! Because they walked in, like, Come on, show me. And as soon as they heard that gong. They see the jets. They're just, ‘okay!’
Development started in 2010. But when did the conversation around a Top Gun sequel actually begin?
Right after we made the first one, and it was a success. I think we tried a few times, I think Tom tried once. And we all went off on our careers: Tom did his wonderful movies, we went off and did ours. So once we didn't hit it the first time, we separated. Then, you know, we got back in the saddle with [Top Gun director] Tony [Scott].
There were a number of delays, of course. Tony passed away.
Of course. So Joe [Kosinski] came in. It was really Joe's story that propelled it into making it happen. Joe pitched me the idea of Goose's son, and that's terrific. So he worked up a bunch of photographs, a presentation, and we flew to Paris — Tom was doing [a Mission: Impossible] — and sat down with him. Joe tells him the story, shows him the photographs.
Tom looked at him, he says: 'There's one thing you gotta promise me. We do it for real. We actually are in the planes, we do it right.' Then Tom picked up the phone, called Paramount, and said, ‘I wanna make another Top Gun.' So that was the impetus to make it all happen.
Your longtime collaborator and co-producer on Top Gun, Don Simpson, is also paid tribute to in Maverick, having passed away in 1996. What were your early sequel ideas?
I can't really remember exactly what the story was, that we figured out. But we certainly worked on some ideas and worked with some writers. We just never got it right. I think he'd be thrilled [with Maverick].
And how has Tom changed since 1986?
I'll tell you, he's a student. He's still a student. He wanted to work with us because he wanted to learn what we do, and how we market, and what we do to make our movies. Every choice he made from that point on was, ‘Who can help me make me better?’
From the directors he worked with, to the writers… you look at the list of directors, it's phenomenal. He's worked with Kubrick, Spielberg. And he's a sponge. He takes it all in. Top Gun: Maverick was one of the real recipients of his knowledge, with everything he put into it, from all of the people he's worked with over the years.
Top Gun had “Take My Breath Away.” Maverick needed a big artist to match Berlin. So you got Lady Gaga.
She's an incredible artist — let's start there. A great writer. Her songs are so well produced, and she has such a great voice. She's a gifted, gifted artist. She's an actress, she's a writer, she can do anything. You always want the best. You've got Tom Cruise? He's the best. You want the best artists.
We got her in very early on — I think Paramount contacted her, and we heard something [from “Hold My Hand”] pretty early on. Joe and I flew to London to play it for Tom and Hans Zimmer, and they were blown away.
You got Val Kilmer back in as Iceman, too. Was it always the intent for him to return?
It was certainly Tom's intent. He said, ‘I’m not making a movie unless he's in it.' They worked together and figured out how they could best use him, and they came up with a great idea.
With all of the success, the critical acclaim, the box office — I know there have been some conversations around a Top Gun 3. But you must be thinking of a wider universe, in the current parlance. Spin-offs…
No.
No? Just the sequel, then.
That's if there is one. It took thirty-five years to get this one, I don't know if I'll be around if there's another one. But no. I mean Tom's booked for the next… he's got another year and a half on Mission, and he's going into space.
The appetite's clearly there. And the money that Maverick's made…
Tom doesn't think about that. And neither do we. We think about, Can we tell another story? What kind of story can we tell? We've all done well. Studios on the other hand, they wanna make their quarter somewhere… [Laughs.]
Have they been bashing at the door?
No, nobody's said anything to me. They might've talked to Tom, but nobody's said a word to me.
Top Gun: Maverick is available on 4K Ultra HD™, Blu-ray™ and DVD on 31 October