Tom Cruise Teases Top Gun: Maverick’s Death-Defying Aerial Sequences

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Tom Cruise teases Top Gun: Maverick’s death-defying aerial sequences

Academy Award-nominated actor Tom Cruise is clearly no stranger to death defying stunts as he is famously known for doing his own stunts in previous blockbuster action films such as Edge of Tomorrow, Jack Reacher, and all of his Mission: Impossible films wherein the last installment fans saw Cruise in a real helicopter chase scene.

Now, speaking with Empire, Cruise and producer Jerry Bruckheimer have opened up about Cruise’s newest death-defying stunts that will be featured in the highly-anticipated Top Gun: Maverick. The pair went on to tease the sequel’s next-level aerial sequences involving Cruise and other cast members as they got to fly real fighter jets.

“What’s different about this movie is that [in Top Gun] we put the actors in the F-14s and we couldn’t use one frame of it, except some stuff on Tom, because they all threw up. It’s hysterical to see their eyes roll back in their heads. So everything was done on a gimbal. But in this movie, Tom wanted to make sure the actors could actually be in the F-18s.” Bruckheimer said.

Cruise added, “I said to the studio, ‘You don’t know how hard this movie’s going to be. No-one’s ever done this before,’ There’s never been an aerial sequence shot this way. I don’t know if there ever will be again, to be honest.”

Top Gun: Maverick is set in a world of drone technology and fifth-generation fighters along with exploring the end of the era of dogfighting. Maverick (once again played by Tom Cruise) is now a flight instructor, who takes Bradley Bradshaw (played by Miles Teller), the son of Maverick’s late partner Nick “Goose” Bradshaw, under his wing. The film also stars Jon Hamm, Val Kilmer, Jennifer Connelly, Glen Powell and Ed Harris.

Joseph Kosinski, who previously directed Cruise in Oblivion, will helm the sequel, with Peter Craig, Justin Marks and Eric Warren Singer penning the script.

A follow-up to Tony Scott’s 1986 hit has been in the works for quite some time, with Tom Cruise interested in reprising his role as United States Naval Aviator Lieutenant Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer previously outlined that the film will deal with the rise of unmanned drones and pilots becoming a thing of the past.

The original Top Gun was directed by Tony Scott and also starred Kelly McGillis, Anthony Edwards and Tom Skerritt. The film won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Take My Breath Away” performed by Berlin. In 2015, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.

Top Gun: Maverick is currently slated to hit the theaters on June 24.