Released: May 27, 2022

Directed By:   Joseph Kosinski

Screenplay By:   Peter Craig & Justin Marks

Based On Characters By: Jim Cash & Jack Epps Jr.

Stars: Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, Ed Harris, Val Kilmer and a bunch of other actors.

Plot:  Set 30 years after its predecessor, it follows Maverick’s return to the United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program (also known as U.S. Navy-Fighter Weapons School – “TOPGUN”), where he must confront his past as he trains a group of younger pilots, among them the son of Maverick’s deceased best friend Lieutenant Nick “Goose” Bradshaw, USN.

How did this movie do?
Budget: $170 Million
Box Office: $1.006 billion

• In June 2022, the family of Ehud Yonay, who wrote the California magazine article “Top Guns” in May 1983 that inspired the first film, sued Paramount for copyright infringement over the release of Top Gun: Maverick and sought damages as well as an injunction against the film’s distribution. Jerry Bruckheimer produced the original film, whose screenplay was written by Jim Cash (died 2000) and Jack Epps Jr.; all three men participated in the sequel.[168] According to the lawsuit, Paramount had obtained exclusive film rights to Yonay’s article but ignored the 35-year copyright law, wherein the rights reverted to Yonay’s widow Shosh and son Yuval in January 2020 after the writer’s death in 2012.
  
  
• The lawsuit claims that Maverick contains elements similar to the original article and that Paramount continued with the filming, even after receiving notice of the copyright’s termination. The film distributor considers most of the sequel to have been complete before then, and denies that Maverick is derived from Yonay’s article.
  
  

Counting mentioned and not otherwise mentioned in the movie but only by their call signs, real names of the pilots/RIOs are:

“Maverick” (Captain Pete Mitchell – Tom Cruise)

“Iceman” (Admiral Tom Kazansky – Val Kilmer)

“Rooster” (Lt Bradley Bradshaw – Miles Teller)

“Penny” (Penelope Benjamin – Jennifer Connelly)

”Hondo” (Bernie Coleman – Bashir Salahuddin)

“Cyclone” (Admiral Beau Simpson – Jon Hamm)

“Warlock” (Rear Admiral Solomon Bates – Charles Parnell)

“Phoenix” (Lt Natasha Trace – Monica Barbaro)

“Bob” (Lieutenant Robert Floyd – Lewis Pullman)

“Payback” (Lieutenant Reuben Fitch – Jay Ellis)

“Fanboy” (Lt Mickey Garcia – Danny Ramirez)

“Hangman” – (Lt Jake Seresin – Glen Powell)

“Omaha” – (Lt Neil Vikander – Jack Schumacher)

“Fritz” (Lt Billy Avalone – Manny Jacinto)

“Halo” (Lieutenant Callie Bassett – Kara Wang)

“Coyote” (Lt Javy Machado – Greg Tarzan Davis)

“Harvard” (Lt Brigham Lennox – Jake Picking)

“Yale” (Lt Logan Lee – Raymond Lee)

”Goose” (Nick Bradshaw – Anthony Edwards)

“Charlie” (Charlotte Blackwood – Kelly McGillis)

• The World War II P-51 Mustang seen in this movie is actually Tom Cruise’s own airplane; he is an accomplished pilot in real life.
  
  
• At the insistence of Tom Cruise, there are minimal green screen and CGI aerial shots in the film, and even the close up cockpit shots are taken during real in-flight sequences. This meant that much of the cast had to undergo extensive G-force training sessions, to withstand the physical demands of the G-force pressures during flights.
  
  
• According to Miles Teller, the cast got to choose their own call signs. He chose “Rooster” because it was in the same family as “Goose”.
  
  
• The roof of the shack next to Ed Harris wasn’t supposed to be lifted when Maverick flies past. However, they only had one chance to shoot it, so it was kept in the film.
  
  
• According to Miles Teller, 3 of the 6 new actors threw up every day of filming in the jets.
  
  
• Tom Cruise personally designed a 3-month aviation training course for the new actors to become ready to handle riding in an F-18.
  
  
• The film is dedicated to the memory of original Top Gun (1986) director Tony Scott who was in the process of developing a version of this sequel prior his passing away.
  
  
• The shirtless beach football montage had to be shot twice because Tom Cruise did not find the first version good enough. The re-shoot placed additional pressure on the actors to get their ripped bodies back to re-shoot the scene. Cast member Glen Powell recounted, “We shot it and that night we all went out for milkshakes and tater tots. Just like splurge and everybody grabbed a beer. And a week later Tom’s like, “We gotta shoot it again. It wasn’t good enough. We’re gonna shoot it again. And then everybody’s back in the gym again, day and night.” The sequence is being used very heavily to promote the movie after a similar scene in the original film became iconic and an audience favorite. The original film showed an intense beach volleyball game.
  
  
• The opening text matches that of the original movie, (“On March 3, 1969, the United States Navy established an elite school for the top one percent of its pilots. Its purpose was to teach the lost art of aerial combat and to insure that the handful of men who graduated were the best fighter pilots in the world.”) except the typo “insure” has now been corrected to “ensure” and women was added.
  
  
• Val Kilmer told Entertainment Weekly that it was like no time had passed when he was on set with Tom Cruise again, and it was fun too. ‘We blew a lot of takes laughing so much,’ the 62-year-old stated. ‘It was really fun and special.’
  
  
• Val Kilmer’s dialog was all AI since he can no longer speak A company named Sonantic developed the voice AI that Kilmer uses. It essentially learned how to mimic Kilmer’s voice, including the iconic way that he himself talks. The revelation that Kilmer used voice AI came during a New York Post interview with his daughter, Mercedes Kilmer. In the interview, she explained how they dubbed the voice AI over Kilmer’s acting to bring his scenes to life. “They were able to dub him with his own voice, which is amazing,” Mercedes explained in the interview. “It’s such a technical feat, being able to engineer his voice that way, that it’s an extension of the technical feat of the film.”
  
  
• Both Goose in Top Gun (1986) and Rooster in the sequel tell Maverick, “Come on Mav. Let’s see some of that pilot shit.”
  
  
• This sequel represents one of the, if not the, longest periods of time between a movie and a sequel in film history. The period of time between ‘Top Gun’ (1986) and ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ (2022) being first released is about 36 years though it could have been a year or two or three less had it not been for delays caused by such things as the COVID pandemic. Other examples of a extremely long intervals of original films and a sequel are ‘Tron’ (1982) and ‘Tron: Legacy’ (2010) [about 28 years] and ‘The Odd Couple’ (1968) and ‘The Odd Couple II’ (1998) [about 30 years].
  
  
• When Maverick taxis the Darkstar Hypersonic aircraft to the runway, a cartoonish skunk is seen on the rear tail fin. The skunk is the logo of “SkunkWorks”, a division of Lockheed Martin who produced the SR-71 Blackbird, among other iconic aircraft.
  
  
• Miles Teller was cast in the role of Goose’s son, beating out the likes of Nicholas Hoult and Glen Powell. All three were flown to the home of Tom Cruise, the star of this movie, for chemistry tests. Powell was later cast in this movie in a role beefed up for him, having impressed Cruise, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, as well as executives at Paramount Pictures and Skydance with his auditions.
  
  
• Tom Cruise is now older than Tom Skerritt was when he played Viper in the original Top Gun (1986). Skerritt was 53 in 1986 and Cruise was 56 in 2018 (when the movie was filmed) and 59 in 2022 (when it was premiered).
  
  
• Admiral Simpson (‘Cyclone’) chews out Maverick for his “that cobra s**t”. Pugachev’s Cobra is a real, though rarely used flight maneuver seen mostly at air shows. That was when Maverick halted his aircraft instantly by pointing its nose up and using the body of the aircraft to brake. It makes a pursuer fly past you, and dangerous because it could cause a collision.
  
  
• The Navy’s oldest fighter pilot retired at 54. Calculating from Maverick’s birth in 1962, he is 58 in Top Gun Maverick. Pushing the envelope, as pilots say.
  
  
• Tom Cruise has the strange habit of having someone or something named “Bob” in most of his movies for the past 20 years or so.
  
  
• Anthony Edwards gave the movie two thumbs up, reacting positively to the film and proclaiming “Job accomplished”. Tom Cruise even screened the film for him in person.
  
  
• On the Kermode and Mayo Podcast, Miles Teller said that they shot more footage for this film than the run time of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
  
  
• The car that Penny drives, a 1973 Porsche 911, is homage to the car that Charlie drove in the original, a 1958 Porsche 356.
  
  
• Lewis Pullman, who played callsign “Bob”, is the son of actor Bill Pullman, who played President Thomas J. Whitmore in Independence Day (1996).
  
  
• The ”Top Gun” trophy belonging to Iceman’ (Val Kilmer) from the original ‘Top Gun’ (1986) movie can be seen on the wall in his office before and after he and Maverick (Tom Cruise) hug.
  
  
• Maverick had already shot down three enemy aircraft before returning to Miramar. He shoots down two more on the new mission, thus earning the title “Fighter/Flying Ace.” Five downed aircraft was considered the minimum requirement for the distinction.
  
  
• Tom Cruise is 5’7 feet height (1.70 meters height). Which is the ideal height for fighter pilots.
  
  
• The targeted country is never identified by name, other than as a ‘rogue nation’.
  
  
• When Hangman selects a song on the jukebox, he keys in the numbers 8 6. The original ‘Top Gun’ movie came out in the year 1986.
  
  
• In 2010, Christopher McQuarrie originally wrote Maverick as a minor character.
  
  
• About eight hundred hours of film footage was shot for this major motion picture.
  
  
• In 2019, China’s Tencent invested 12.5% of the film, but later pulled out of the project at the end of that year over concerns that the film’s themes could anger the Chinese Communist Party.
  
  
• Jennifer Connelly is playing Maverick’s new love interest, after Kelly McGillis wasn’t cast for the sequel. Possibly related to the fact both Tom Cruise and Jennifer Connelly starred in separate, yet similar films. ‘Legend (1985)’ for Cruise, and ‘Labyrinth (1986)’ for Connelly respectively.
  
  
• The ”Rooster” call-sign of Lieutenant Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw (Miles Teller) is a recognition of the way he cocks his head while playing the piano. You can see it in the scene when he plays ‘Great Balls of Fire’ in a call-back to the original film when his father, Goose (Anthony Edwards), plays it with his son ”Rooster” sitting on the piano.
  
  
• When Jennifer Connelly’s character of Penny Benjamin is first introduced in the film’s first bar scene, the song in the background that starts playing is “Let’s Dance” (1983) by David Bowie. Connelly and Bowie both starred together in ‘The Labyrinth’ (1986) which was first released in the same 1986 year as the original ‘Top Gun’ (1986) movie.
  
  
• The reason the ejector seat didn’t work in the stolen F-14, was in their haste to depart they did not remove the safety pins from the eject seat, which prevent the canopy release and seat rocket motor being fired accidentally on the ground.
  
  
• At Ice’s funeral, the famous “Missing Person” formation is shown. At the last moment, one of the pilots pulls up out of formation, indicating someone has passed on.
  
  
• The only pilot to crash during training was Phoenix, named after a mythical bird who rises from its own fiery ashes. She then proceeds to fly in the final mission.
  
  
• The mission in this movie shares multiple elements with the Death Star mission in Star Wars (1977). A small group of fighters have to fly along a trench, keeping below the defensive armament, to target the opening to a small shaft that will enable them to destroy the target. The successful shot is made by a pilot who does not use the targeting technology and instead shoots by instinct, and the heroes are eventually saved by the late intervention of an arrogant pilot who was not part of the original mission. In the scene when Maverick attacks them in their practice run, one pilot tells the pilot that will shoot, the Star Wars line “Stay on target” and they are both shot by Maverick, again like the movie.
  
  
• Two more winks at the original. Maverick appears in the class to the embarrassment of the younger pilots, who had been teasing him the night before in the bar. In Top Gun, Maverick is similarly mortified when Charlie is introduced, as he’d come on to her in the bar previously. And at the end of the successful missions in both films, Maverick shamelessly buzzes the tower.
  
  
• A theory from Vulture suggests that there’s a logical plot reason for why everything is so heightened: it’s all the dying fantasy of Maverick. When we reunite with Maverick at the start of the movie, he’s about to attempt to reach Mach 9 in a hypersonic jet as part of the Darkstar program. He’s told that Rear Admiral Cain is on his way to shut it down to redirect the funds to unmanned drones. Before Cain arrives, Maverick takes to the skies anyway and reaches Mach 9, before pushing on to Mach 10, the planned target of Darkstar. He manages just that but, Maverick being Maverick, decides to push the scramjet even further which is when things go very wrong. We see the jet break apart in the sky and yet, somehow, the next scene sees Maverick wander into a diner a little bit dazed, but still alive and in one piece. The theory argues though that this never really happened, and everything we see play out is the “death dream” of Maverick. It’s Maverick’s dying fantasy, so of course he’s the one pilot in the world that can make this impossible mission work. And, of course, despite Maverick being assigned to be the teacher, he ends up leading the mission that includes him making a sacrificial play to save Rooster, who also somehow survives. Even the fact that the movie leaves the actual identity of the enemy unknown makes sense in the theory. Maverick is just using inspiration from his last major Top Gun mission where he also went up against a similarly-unspecified enemy in the first movie. It’s also why when we first meet Rooster, he’s dressed exactly as his father Goose did and sports the same moustache, going on to play the same song at the piano. You could even take the theory further and argue that Maverick and Rooster’s reconciliation in the finale is part of the fantasy, something that Maverick wasn’t able to do in life. You could also apply it to the other main relationships that Maverick has in the movie. It would have to be Iceman who recommended him for the mission as he had Maverick’s back throughout his career, while Maverick gets together with Penny at the end as it’s another relationship that, like Rooster, Maverick didn’t get right in life.