The new behind-the-scenes featurette explains Top Gun: Maverick is a “competition film about family, friendship, and sacrifice.” It’s also, according to Paramount Pictures’ nearly three-minute video, “a love letter to aviation.”
“You just can’t create this kind of experience unless you shoot it live. In order for us to accomplish this we have the greatest fighter pilots in the world working with us,” explains Tom Cruise.
“We’re working with a brand new camera system that allows us to put six IMAX-quality cameras inside the cockpit with the actors,” says director Joseph Kosinski.
Adds Jerry Bruckheimer, “Thanks to Tom, all the actors are becoming accustomed to the G-forces by all the training that they’re doing.”
Discussing the shoot, Cruise said, “It is aggressive. You can’t act that, the distortion in the face. They’re pulling seven and-a-half, eight Gs. That’s 1,600 pounds of force. I am so proud of them and what they’ve done. And it is heavy-duty.”
Top Gun newcomer Miles Teller plays Goose’s son, Rooster, in the sequel. “Putting us up in these jets, it’s very serious. That’s why everybody thought it would be impossible. And I think when Tom hears that something’s impossible or it can’t be done, that’s when he gets to work.”
Paramount Pictures has set a June 26, 2020 theatrical release date.
The Top Gun: Maverick Plot, Courtesy of Paramount Pictures:
“After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell (Cruise) is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. When he finds himself training a detachment of Top Gun graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen, Maverick encounters Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (Teller), call sign: ‘Rooster,’ the son of Maverick’s late friend and Radar Intercept Officer Lt. Nick Bradshaw, aka ‘Goose.’
Facing an uncertain future and confronting the ghosts of his past, Maverick is drawn into a confrontation with his own deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who will be chosen to fly it.”
