Four years after the massive success of Top Gun: Maverick, a third film is officially in the works.
Paramount announced the news during its CinemaCon panel, confirming that both Tom Cruise and producer Jerry Bruckheimer would be returning (H/T Variety). The news comes just two months after Bruckheimer announced that they were “expecting a script shortly.”
Top Gun: Maverick, directed by F1 helmer Joseph Kosinski, earned a whopping $1.5 billion against a budget of $170 million at the global box office back in 2022… so there was no way we weren’t getting another one. The film also holds a 96% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes… which is quite the step up from the 59% critic score held by the original 1986 movie.
Article continues below
A sequel was officially greenlit in 2024, with Christopher McQuarrie confirming he was working on the script in 2025. We don’t know if Kosinski will return to direct, nor do we have any details about the plot. You might recall Top Gun: Maverick star Miles Teller pitching a threequel that would focus on his character, Rooster, and that he had indeed spoken to Cruise about it.
“As you start to execute it… you start [to think] why these movies are made the way they are,” Maverick writer Christopher McQuarrie previously said when asked about the third film. “It’s not the action, it’s not even the level of or intensity of or the scope and scale of the action… It’s none of those things. It’s the emotion.”
For more, check out our list of the most exciting upcoming movies in 2026 and beyond, or, check out our list of movie release dates.
Bringing all the latest movie news, features, and reviews to your inbox
