After a year of development, Top Gun 3 is not quite ready for takeoff.
Jay Ellis, who plays Lt. Reuben ‘Payback’ Fitch in Top Gun: Maverick, recently gave an update on the third installment, which was Deadline reported was in the works at Paramount in January 2024.
“So here’s what the story’s going to be. It’s going to be Payback. No, no,” he jokingly told Us Weekly. “In all honesty, they’re still working on the script. They’re still working on the story. They’re wanting to get it right.”
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Ellis added that co-star and producer Tom Cruise “is a stickler, and that really comes from him wanting to make sure the audience gets what they paid for and that they’re entertained. [So] that for those two hours, they can fully disappear in this theater, and the world around them doesn’t exist anymore, and [be] fully entertained. That’s where the focus is.”
With Maverick co-writer Ehren Kruger returning, Ellis said the creative team is also “really making sure that this story is not done just to make a movie, but made because these characters are going to make people lean in.”
Last January, Top Gun 3 was reported as in development at Paramount, following Cruise’s non-exclusive pact with Warner Bros. The actor and producer is set to reunite with co-stars Miles Teller and Glen Powell, as well as producers Jerry Bruckheimer and David Ellison. Joe Kosinski, will reportedly either direct or produce.
Top Gun: Maverick is the highest grossing movie of Cruise’s career at $1.49 billion. It won an Oscar for Best Sound and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
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