'F1' Director Teases 'Top Gun 3'
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Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
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Pete "Maverick" Mitchell still has a need for speed. That's the word from "Top Gun: Maverick" and "F1: The Movie" director Joseph Kosinski. The director spoke to GQ while promoting "F1", and said in the coming threequel "Top Gun 3", Maverick will be dealing with an existential crisis.
Read More: Tom Cruise Wants to Bring Back His Most Beloved Character
"I think we've found a way to do ["Top Gun 3"], not only in the scale of what we're proposing, but the idea itself of the story we're telling," Kosinski said. "We're thinking much bigger than... It's a really existential crisis that Maverick has in this, and it's much bigger than himself."
"It actually... I'm trying to describe it without giving anything away," Kosinski continued. "It's an existential question that Maverick has to deal with, that would make Maverick feel small, I think, as a movie, compared to what we're talking about."
Tom Cruise as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in "Top Gun: Maverick".
Tom Cruise as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in "Top Gun: Maverick".
Skydance Media
Kosinski went on to confirm that, while "Top Gun: Maverick" may have felt like it was passing the baton to a new generation, Maverick will remain the central character in "Top Gun 3".
"Yeah, there's still more story to tell for him," Kosinski said. "There's one last ride. So we're working on it now. Ehren Kruger, who wrote 'F1', is writing the script. Like all things, it takes a while to work things out, and we'll only do it if we feel like we've got a strong enough story."
"Top Gun: Maverick" proved to be a humungous success. The film suffered a number of delays because Cruise refused to have it released straight to streaming during the COVID pandemic.
It finally hit theaters in May 2022. Pulling in $1.5 billion at the global box office, the legacy sequel proved to be a massive hit. It made such a dent that Steven Spielberg was quoted saying that Cruise had "saved Hollywood's a**."
Pete "Maverick" Mitchell may not be the only legacy character Cruise returns to in the coming years. Back in May, Cruise's frequent collaborator - director Christopher McQuarrie - said they've had discussions about bringing back his "Tropic Thunder" character Les Grossman.
"The conversations we've had about Les Grossman are so f---ing funny," McQuarrie said. "We're talking about it, man. We're having very serious conversations about it and how best to do it and where, you know, it ultimately comes down to what that character is."
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