WARNING: Minor spoilers ahead for Top Gun: Maverick!
While Top Gun: Maverick debuted as a massive success, producer Jerry Bruckheimer's response to Top Gun 3 is a refreshing take on Hollywood’s sequel trends. Top Gun: Maverick is the highest-grossing movie of 2022 outside of the superhero genre, with the sequel continuing to soar at the box office. Not only has it broken box office records for Tom Cruise openings and recorded the lowest second-weekend drop of any $100 million premieres, but Top Gun 2 also debuted to overwhelmingly positive reviews, thus keeping the summer blockbuster alive and well.
After 36 years, Paramount revived 1986’s Top Gun with its 2022 legacy sequel, bringing back Tom Cruise as the charismatic and reckless aviator Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. While training a new group of TOPGUN graduates for a high-stakes mission, Maverick is confronted with his own mortality, grief over his former comrades, and the responsibility of passing on his legacy to a younger generation of pilots, including Rooster, the son of his late best friend, Goose. The heartwarming ending of Top Gun 2 seems to create closure for Maverick’s story but has also sparked conversations about a follow-up with Top Gun 3.
With a significant influx of legacy sequels in recent years, Hollywood has developed a cynical trend in which studios greenlight subsequent installments far too soon. When asked about the possibility of Top Gun 3, producer Jerry Bruckheimer revealed that there are no immediate plans to continue the franchise - but hasn’t ruled anything out. Rather than jumping on the hype train to maintain interest by quickly developing a sequel, Paramount is waiting to move forward with Top Gun’s future as it slows down to enjoy the runaway success of the 2022 movie. Top Gun 2 is now one of the rare legacy sequels that approach the return of its original characters and the development of a new generation with superior care and purpose, which another lackluster follow-up can often ruin.
This is proving to be an issue with Paramount’s upcoming Scream 6, which is being released in 2023, only one year after its successful 2022 legacy sequel debuted. Scream 5’s approach to the characters was novel in terms of the cultural commentaries on sequels, toxic fandoms, and franchise revivals, with fresh Hollywood meta-commentaries being a key component of the Scream movie series. However, Scream 6 was almost immediately greenlit by the studio with very quick development, which begs the question of whether or not it actually has something extra to say about Hollywood themes or if it’s primarily a franchise cash-grab by Paramount. Similarly, Tom Cruise's Top Gun: Maverick had a compelling, emotionally-gripping story to tell after 36 years, particularly through Maverick’s aging and Rooster’s generation as a replacement for the original characters. While Top Gun 3 is an exciting prospect, it needs time and care before coming back with a captivating story that warrants its execution.
On the other hand, Paramount’s patience with Top Gun 3 comes amid the announcement that the studio is being sued for copyright infringement. Top Gun (1986) was inspired by Ehud Yonay’s 1983 California magazine article “Top Guns,” which Paramount secured the rights for quickly after its publication. Yonay’s heirs claim that Paramount failed to reclaim the rights for the story upon the copyright termination in 2020 while alleging that Top Gun: Maverick wasn’t completed until May 2021. If the Yonays win their Top Gun: Maverick copyright infringement lawsuit, Paramount will have to forfeit the rights to future sequels and spinoffs to the story. While Paramount is prepared to “vigorously” fight back against what they call a “meritless” lawsuit, the studio likely realized they’d be hit with legal actions and shouldn’t focus on developing Top Gun 3 until these matters are settled.
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