TOP GUN 3 Is Coming, but ‘They’re Wanting to Get It Right’
By Movieguide® Contributor
TOP GUN: MAVERICK actor Jay Ellis is giving a TOP GUN 3 update — after a year in development, it’s not quite perfect yet.
“So here’s what the story’s going to be. It’s going to be Payback. No, no,” he recently joked to Us Weekly. “In all honesty, they’re still working on the script. They’re still working on the story. They’re wanting to get it right.”
His costar and producer Tom Cruise “is a stickler, and that really comes from him wanting to make sure the audience gets what they paid for and that they’re entertained,” Ellis explained. “[So] that for those two hours, they can fully disappear in this theater, and the world around them doesn’t exist anymore, and [be] fully entertained. That’s where the focus is.”
Ellis added the writing team is trying to develop the characters so that “people lean in.”
The new movie was expected to started shooting early this year for a summer 2026 release date. Since the script is still in development, it looks like a 2026 release may not happen.
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“Tom was very discerning,” Ellis told Variety. “It took a while to make TOP GUN: MAVERICK for a reason. He wanted it to be right, he wanted to push film forward, he wanted to be able to film in the jets.”
“So I think when we look at whatever the next iteration of this franchise is, it’s gonna be that,” he explained. “Tom’s gonna take his time. He’s gonna get it right.”
Cruise and Ellis are expected to be joined by MAVERICK vets Glen Powell and Miles Teller. Jerry Bruckheimer and David Ellison will co-produce, and Joe Kosinski is rumored to either direct or produce.
It’s easy to see why the pressure is on for the next TOP GUN installment. MAVERICK was nominated for six Academy Awards and was Cruise’s highest-grossing movie at $1.49 billion — a high standard to meet.
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