Paramount Pictures is peeling back the curtain on this year’s highly anticipated sequelTop Gun: Maverick, revealing six new images from the film alongside some new information about what we can expected from the follow-up.Tom Cruisereturns to one of the roles that made him a movie star, reprising his role as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. But the story ofTop Gun: Maverickfinds the titular pilot returning to flight school to run some specialized training for graduates.
Indeed, directorJoseph Kosinski—who brought a visual flair toTron: LegacyandOblivion—tellsEWthat the young pilots in this sequel are at a different level of training than Maverick, Goose, etc. in the firstTop Gun:
“Those pilots were entering the Top Gun school for the first time. In our film, these are all Top Gun graduates who are coming back for a special training detachment — which is another aspect of Top Gun where they can go back for specialized training after they’ve already graduated. They’re at a different level of experience than in the first film.”
To capture the in-flight shots, the actors were put in F-18 Super Hornets outfitted with IMAX-quality cameras. But they couldn’t start out in an F-18, and the training process that they went through was actually designed by Cruise himself:
“The experience is thrilling but very physically grueling,” Kosinski says. “The maneuvers that we were putting them through to tell this story were not something that you’re able to just jump in and do. They all had to go through months of aerial training. We put them through a training course that Tom actually designed himself. He’s a licensed aerobatic pilot, and he was thrown into deep end when he did the firstTop Gunwithout any training. So he knew that they would need to kind of work up to that level. So they started in Cessnas and then worked their way up aerobatic airplanes then into small single-engine jets before they were in the Super Hornet. Occasionally it made some of the actors sick and that even happens to experienced fighter pilots.”
Miles Tellerfills the role of “Rooster,” son of the dearly departed Goose and the character who forms the core of the film alongside Cruise’s Maverick. But in the photos below you’ll also seeDanny Ramirezas “Fanboy,”Glen Powellas “Hangman,”Jay Ellisas “Payback,”Monica Barbaroas “Phoenix,” andLewis Pullmanas “BOB.”Top Gun: Maverickopens in theaters on June 26th.
