27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Tom Cruise's Top Gun 3 is ‘in the bag', says director Christopher McQuarrie
Popular American filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie has shared fresh updates on his ongoing creative ventures with Tom Cruise, revealing that multiple collaborations are in motion. One of the most anticipated projects is the sequel to the 2022 mega-hit Top Gun: Maverick. According to Christopher, the follow-up is essentially set, saying it's 'already in the bag' and that he 'already know[s]' the story.
During a recent appearance on Josh Horowitz's Happy Sad Confused podcast, Christopher described how unexpectedly easy it was to land on the concept. 'It wasn't hard. I thought it would be, and that's a good place to go from is you walk into the room going, 'Come on, what are we going to do?' And [co-writer] Ehren Kruger pitched something and I went, 'Mm, actually,' and we had one conversation about it and the framework is there. So, no, it's not hard to crack. The truth of the matter is, none of these are hard to crack,' he said.
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He went on to explain that the real challenge comes during development, not ideation. 'It's as you start to execute it, and as you start to interrogate it, as you start [to think] why these movies are made the way they are: It's not the action, it's not even the level of or intensity of or the scope and scale of the action [or] the engineering around the action, it's none of those things — it's the emotion.'
When asked whether he might direct the third Top Gun film—given that Maverick was directed by Joseph Kosinski, and the original by the late Tony Scott—Christopher responded, 'I have given that absolutely no thought, no thought whatsoever … However, I have done a lot of research into how to make a Tony Scott movie.'
In addition to the Top Gun sequel, Christopher touched on another Tom-linked idea that's been in the works: a spinoff centered on Les Grossman, the outrageous movie executive Tom portrayed in Tropic Thunder. He confirmed that the concept is still actively being explored.
'Everything is a priority, everything will — in one way or another — happen,' he said. 'It will not necessarily happen in the time or place you think it will. They're all things we're talking about, they're all things we have ideas about, the conversations we have had about Les Grossman are so f**king funny. We're talking about it, man, we're having very serious conversations about it and how best to do it and it ultimately comes down to what that character is.'
