Tom Cruise has confirmed that he is “working on” a sequel to 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick as well as his 1990 sports action drama Days of Thunder.
In a new interview to Australia’s Today, Cruise said: “Yeah, we’re thinking and talking about many different stories and what could we do and what’s possible”.
“It took me 35 years to figure out Top Gun: Maverick, so all of these things we’re working on, we’re discussing Days of Thunder and Top Gun: Maverick.”
“There’s numerous other films that we’re actively working on right now. I’m always shooting a film, prepping a film, posting a film. I just finished a film with Alejandro Iñárritu too, who did The Revenant, and we’ll be coming out with that. That was an extraordinary experience and [Christopher McQuarrie] and I are always working on several different films.”
It was announced in January 2024 that Cruise had signed on to reprise his role as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in a third Top Gun film and Paramount had commissioned screenwriter Ehren Kruger to start work on the project.
Top Gun: Maverick ended up becoming a breakout film for Glen Powell and Miles Teller, who are also rumoured to be returning, along with director Joseph Kosinski.
The film, a sequel to the original 1986 film, grossed $1.4bn worldwide, becoming the second-highest-grossing film of the year and receiving six nominations at the Oscars, including for best picture.
The Tony Scott-directed Days of Thunder, saw Cruise play NASCAR rookie Cole Trickle trying to make a name for himself, alongside Nicole Kidman and Robert Duvall. While the film received mixed reviews initially from critics, it has gone on to become a cult favourite.
Cruise’s recent work, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the last instalment in the popular action series, premiered at the Cannes film festival and was reportedly met with a 7.5-minute-long standing ovation.
On Wednesday, the film, which received rave reviews from early critics, was screened at the Grand Théâtre Lumière, where Cruise bid farewell to his beloved character, Ethan Hunt.
“I’m very grateful, very grateful for 30 years to be able to entertain with this franchise,” the Oscar-nominated actor, 62, who has led all eight of the Mission: Impossible entries, told the crowd in a clip posted to X.
Addressing the film’s director, Christopher McQuarrie, Cruise continued to express his gratitude, saying: “Every step of the way, what you’ve done and how you’ve expanded it, how it just went beyond our expectations.”
In a four-star review of the film for The Independent, Clarisse Loughrey said that she “absolutely adored it”, writing: “This (potentially final) entry in the long-running franchise is inherently absurd, but who cares?”
“The Final Reckoning, final or not, presents us with a fascinating contradiction: Ethan Hunt is both a pure singular and a state of mind. He’s cinema as the madman dreamer’s paradise,” she added.
