With Top Gun: Maverick breaking the billion-dollar barrier at the global box office and Tom Cruise appearing to have closed the chapter on his long-running Mission: Impossible saga, the spotlight has naturally shifted to the possibility of an inevitable third Top Gun installment.
In a recent interview with ScreenRant, director Joseph Kosinski offered a significant update on the long-rumored Top Gun 3, confirming that the wheels are officially in motion.
"Ehren Kruger is writing the script as we speak,” Kosinski revealed. “It’s a big idea that I spent almost a year developing — working with some friends at the Navy and Lockheed. And yeah, Ehren’s into it now, so we’ll see how it comes along."
Kosinski hinted that the concept behind the sequel was simply too compelling to pass up. “It was about coming up with an idea that — again — felt like a new challenge. Something that opens up the story in a way you just can’t let go. And I think the idea is so ambitious. That’s what’s exciting to me.”
In addition to Kruger, Top Gun: Maverick co-writer and Mission: Impossible director Christopher McQuarrie is also attached to the project as a creative consultant. Just last month, McQuarrie shared that the team had successfully cracked the core story for the third installment, setting high expectations for what’s to come in Maverick’s next flight.
"It wasn’t hard,” McQuarrie said recently on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “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 Ehren Kruger pitched something and I went, ‘Mhm actually,’ and we had one conversation about it and the framework is there."
Top Gun: Maverick picks up decades after the original, with Captain Pete "Maverick" Mitchell still defying expectations as a Navy test pilot. When he's called back to TOPGUN, it's not to fly, but to train a group of the Navy's best for a near-suicidal mission: taking out a fortified uranium enrichment facility.
The assignment becomes personal when Maverick discovers one of the pilots is Lieutenant Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, the son of Maverick’s late best friend and wingman, Goose. Rooster carries a grudge, blaming Maverick for issues with his father and setbacks in his own career.
Despite resistance from command and tension among the team, Maverick challenges the pilots with brutal flight drills, proving that experience and instinct can still beat cutting-edge tech. Along the way, he reconnects with former flame Penny Benjamin, reigniting a relationship that had always been left unresolved.
A visit with his old rival-turned-friend Iceman, now gravely ill, helps Maverick confront his past and embrace his role as a mentor. After Iceman’s death, Maverick is relieved of his duties, but not for long. He hijacks a jet to prove the mission can be done, pulling off a breathtaking test flight that earns him back the respect of both command and his trainees.