IT’S BEEN 34 years since Tom Cruise and
producer Jerry Bruckheimer (plus director Tony
Scott, and producer Don Simpson) fi rst felt the
need...the need for speed, and made Top Gun, the
movie that propelled Cruise’s already-rising star
into the stratosphere. Where he’s remained
since. Thirty-four years, during which time they
felt the need again...the need for speed again by
essentially remaking Top Gun as the car-based
Days Of Thunder in 1990. And then, after that,
while they both continued to feel the need...the
need for speed, they also felt the need...the need
to work with other people.
Now and again, their orbits would cross
and, now and again, the notion of getting back
together one more time for another high-
altitude adventure would come up. But every
time that happened, Cruise would say no.
“Everywhere I went, people would be like, ‘Do
Top Gun,’ and I’m like, ‘Guys, I don’t know how to
do it,’” Cruise tells Empire. “I don’t know what the
story is. I don’t make movies just to make movies.
I was like, ‘Jerry, it’s never going to happen.’
I honestly never thought I would make it.”
So, what changed? Why are we only several
months from seeing Cruise return as Pete‘Maverick’ Mitchell? Why, after years of Tom
and Jerry playing cat and mouse, is Top Gun:
Maverick about to screech past us like an F-
with the afterburners on?
“We just started talking,” says Cruise. “And
I realised that there were things that we could
accomplish cinematically. And I started getting
excited about this big challenge of, ‘How do we
do it?’ So I said to Jerry, ‘I’ll do it if...’ meaning,
I’m not going to do the CGI stuff .”
Much has changed since Cruise and
Bruckheimer last worked together. Scott and
Simpson, two of the great architects of Top Gun’s
iconic look and feel, are no longer with us. And
while Bruckheimer insists that Cruise is “the
same guy; his drive hasn’t changed at all”, Cruise
is no longer just the star. He’s become a producer
in his own right. And, somewhere along the way,
he decided to rewrite the rulebook on how to
shoot and stage action in blockbusters. Namely,
less of that CGI stuff.
It’s not hard to see why. The aerial footage in
the original Top Gun is spectacular, but perhaps
lacks that verisimilitude that Cruise seeks.
“What’s diff erent about this movie is that we put
the actors in the F-14s and we couldn’t use one
frame of it, except some stuff on Tom, because
they all threw up,” laughs Bruckheimer. “It’s
hysterical to see their eyes roll back in their
heads. So everything was done on a gimbal. But
in this movie, Tom wanted to make sure the
actors could actually be in the F-18s.”
Cruise may be a couple of years away from
turning 60, an age where most people feel the
need...the need for cocoa, but he’s not exactly
withering on the vine. Instead, he sees Top Gun:
Maverick as a chance to break new ground.
Or, more accurately, new sky. “I have been
developing aerial photography, making it more
subjective,” he explains. “I’ve done more aerial
photography than pretty much any other actor
alive. On American Made, we started to explore
using real aircraft, and changing the language
of how to do something practically. It’s not just
capturing action. You can’t imagine the amount
of engineering involved, the tests we have to do.”
At this point in time, there’s very little that
either Cruise or Bruckheimer are willing toLeft: Jerry Bruckheimer and Tom Cruise on the set of Top
Gun: Maverick. Above: Cruise back in the cockpit as Pete
‘Maverick’ Mitchell.❯PREVIEW