Though it may sound like a radical departure from Tom Cruise's usual blockbuster fare, the much-anticipated sequel Top Gun: Maverick may end with his iconic title character being killed off. Released in 1986, Tony Scott’s cult classic Top Gun was a huge hit with audiences, a star-making vehicle for Risky Business hero Tom Cruise, and an ideal recruitment tool for the real-life Navy and Air Force.

After decades away from the big screen, Cruise’s reckless antihero Maverick is now set to finally return in 2021’s long-awaited sequel Top Gun: Maverick and fan anticipation for the much-delayed sequel is reaching fever pitch. As it stands, only some of the original Top Gun’s cast members are returning for this belated follow-up, with original love interest Charlie absent and the status of Maverick’s legendary mentor Viper still being unknown.

Related: Where Is Viper In Top Gun: Maverick?

However, while a lot of viewers were delighted to see that Val Kilmer’s frenemy Iceman would be making a triumphant return in the upcoming Top Gun sequel, Maverick himself remains one of the biggest draws for fans of the franchise. One of the Mission Impossible star’s most memorable roles, Cruise's Maverick combines the actor's boyish charm with the intense edge of his darker roles to create a classic action cinema antihero. Which makes it all the more interesting that Maverick may well die by the end of Top Gun: Maverick. It might like box office suicide, given the Top Gun fandom’s love of Cruise, but Maverick ending the sequel by being the body in the coffin glimpsed during the trailer of Top Gun: Maverick actually makes an awful lot of sense.

Maverick's Top Gun 2 Death Theory Explained

Tom Cruise as Pete Maverick Mitchell in Top Gun Maverick

According to one fan theory, it’s not Maverick’s student or his fire-forged friend Iceman who will end up in the trailer’s coffin by the end of Top Gun: Maverick's action, but the aging test pilot himself. It may sound surprising, but considering how much the original Top Gun depicts Maverick’s infamous “need for speed” as a life-endangering obsession that contributes to the tragically early death of Goose, it’s not impossible to picture this drive eventually getting Maverick himself killed too. After all, despite its fun tone, the first movie’s focus on Maverick's obsessive need for speed and lonely pursuit of perfection does foreshadow the possibility that this "live fast, die hard" attitude will finally catch up with Cruise’s character via the soundtrack’s famous Kenny Loggins track ”Danger Zone”. That hit implies in its lyrics (as does the even more explicit original theme song, Judas Priest’s "Reckless") that Maverick may well go out, most likely sacrificing himself, in a blaze of glory that proves his single-minded obsession was always going to eventually be his doom. It would be a daringly dark end for the character, but one that would prove thematically fitting for the Top Gun franchise’s recurring themes of obsession and its human cost.

Why Maverick Might Die In Top Gun 2

Tom Cruise in Top Gun Maverick

According to the synopsis of Top Gun: Maverick, the movie’s action will see Maverick pulled into a mission that "demands the ultimate sacrifice from those that are chosen to fly it.” That sounds a lot like a euphemism for dying, particularly from a character who has already been risking his life by working as a test pilot since the original movie. Goose already died in action and the movie’s trailer makes it clear that this Top Gun outing will be a lot less focused on fun than the original movie, judging by the prominent placement of the coffin in the sequel’s trailer. As a result, there’s no character more likely to die due to their pursuit of higher speeds and riskier stunts than Cruise’s Maverick. The death would also allow the series to shift its focus onto the next generation of Navy pilots without keeping Cruise as the focus of later sequels. In practical terms, this may be appealing to the creators, as removing the need to pay Cruise’s sizable salary would lower the cost of later Top Gun sequels, and thus allow the series to focus more on stunts than its expensive star.

Why Maverick's Death Theory Might Not Be True

Top Gun 2 Maverick Tom Cruise Jet Fighter Plane Action

Although the high-flying action is a big draw, Cruise’s enduring Mission Impossible popularity means he’s a huge part of Top Gun: Maverick’s box office appeal and not one that the franchise would let go of easily. Even if it makes perfect thematic sense to kill off Maverick at the end of Top Gun: Maverick and would lend a gravitas to the new movie that the original never boasted, this decision could also be box office anathema that would destroy any chance of further sequels. If Maverick stays alive, after all, he could return as a more stoic mentor figure in later outings and eventually take on a Viper-style role for later recruits. As such, this twist may not be worth losing the famous star of the series, even with many new actors being added to the sequel’s large cast list.

Related: Is The MiG-28 Real? What Jet Top Gun Actually Used

What This Means for the Top Gun Franchise

Custom image of Maverick and Rooster in Top Gun 2

It remains to be seen whether Top Gun fans and general audiences will warm to the long-awaited sequel when it arrives next year, but a further sequel without Tom Cruise in the main role would be a big risk for the series. That said, Miles Teller’s Rooster could be a fitting replacement, as the young actor has Cruise’s cocksure charisma and his connection to the original movie’s Goose would provide much-needed continuity for the franchise. There’s a possibility that Top Gun: Maverick will see Cruise’s character butting heads with Goose’s offspring and reliving his guilt over Goose’s death, only for Maverick to die defending Goose’s son and thus fulfill his karmic debt to the dead character.

This could also give Teller’s Rooster a compelling arc as he moves on from hating Maverick to respecting him and ends up replacing the icon as the protagonist of later Top Gun movies, but this would represent a huge box office risk for the movie series. After all, Teller’s duds Fantastic Four and Bleed For This are proof that he is an untested proposition at the box office in comparison to the enduringly popular Cruise, meaning the Top Gun franchise may well want to avoid relying on the young star when keeping Cruise alive is also an option.

More: Top Gun 2: Why Iceman Shouldn't Die In Maverick

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