During CinemaCon, Paramount/Skydance CEO David Ellison revealed to the audience that Top Gun 3 was officially in the works and that leading man Tom Cruise was set to reprise his iconic role as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, with Jerry Bruckheimer once again producing.
Now, while he may have been a tad premature in announcing the film, as it's still a ways away from heading into production, we do have formal confirmation that a script is being written, although that wasn't exactly a new development. Top Gun: Maverick co-writer Ehren Kruger was hired to pen the script two years ago, while Christopher McQuarrie is also believed to be involved, as he revealed last year that he'd cracked the sequel's story.
However, what was left out of that recent announcement was the name of a director for the sequel. Joseph Kosinski had helmed Top Gun: Maverick, but with him tied up with Miami Vice '85, it's now been confirmed he won't be back for the sequel. Naturally, many fans then assumed Cruise would turn to longtime collaborator Christopher McQuarrie to take the helm, but a new report from The InSneider claims that McQ is also not in consideration after the two-part Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning and Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning both underperformed at the box office.
McQ will instead tackle a Conan the Barbarian sequel with Arnold Schwarzenegger and is in the early stages of developing a Battlefield movie with Michael B. Jordan. And, while Top Gun 3 won't be the next time they work together, the have a number of other projects in the works, including an original action-thriller film with franchise potential, an original song and dance-style musical, and a film centered around Cruise's breakout Tropic Thunder character Les Grossman.
With Kosinski and McQuarrie out of the running, who is actually up for the job? Well, Sneider reports that a few of the names he's heard that are being considered include John M. Chu (Wicked; G.I. Joe: Retaliation), Joachim Rønning (Tron: Ares; Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales), and the directing duo of Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah (Bad Boys: Ride or Die; Ms. Marvel).
As for whether Top Gun 3 will be Cruise's next film after Digger remains to be seen, especially considering everything else he has in various stages of development, but it certainly seems like a high priority for the studio, which could certainly use a win after its recent acquisition of Warner Bros.